[Loch-Ruadh] Word of the Day, March 13, 2002

[Cait O'Hara]

Slops

Trowsers so large so as to require special seats to be installed in Parliament during the reign of Elizabeth I to accommodate them.
-- William Toone’s Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Terms, 1832

Over the seats of the Parliament-house, in the forty-three years of Queen Elizabeth, when some repairs were there done, were to be seen certain holes about two inches square in the walls, in which formerly were placed posts to uphold a scaffold round the inside of the house, for those to sit on who, in the beginning of the reign, used the wearing of great breeches stuffed with hair, like wool-sacks…. In her eighth year, being left off, the scaffolds were taken down and never since put up.
-- Joseph Strutt’s Manners, Customs and Habits of England, 1775

Tallie Day
On this date in Deeside, Scotland, it was once customary to mock one’s betters by quietly attaching a tail to the seat of their pants.





---
Never meddle in the affairs of dragons;
For you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
-- Acacia



2,000,000,000 Web Pages--you only need 1. Save time with My Lycos.
http://my.lycos.com