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OP actually, he refers to this, in Q&A:
1711 -- Johnathan Swift notes the contents of London's gutters: "sweepings from butchers' stalls, dung, guts and blood, drowned puppies, stinking sprats, all drenched in mud..."
and what Swift perhaps alluded to was a sprat, (fig.)* a young, small, or insignificant person (e.g., a ragamuffin).
*in it's original sense, a sprat = a small European herring (think anchovy, smelt, grunion et al).
so what's a grotty little person (or smelt) doing in our Swiftian quote with all of that other crapola?
Monty Python strikes once again, helping us to better understand our heritage...
[a knight errant, in search of the holy grail, asks a
grotty field serf how to recognize the king]
He's the one not[E.A.] all covered in [brown]$#!+[/brown]!
Entire Thread Subject Posted By Posted our ancien regime tsuwm 02/05/05 02:00 AM Re: our ancien regime Wordwind 02/05/05 07:36 PM Re: our ancien regime tsuwm 02/05/05 07:49 PM Re: our ancien regime Wordwind 02/05/05 07:56 PM Re: our ancien regime tsuwm 02/05/05 09:01 PM Rx for neophilia plutarch 02/05/05 09:45 PM Re: history maverick 02/05/05 11:21 PM Re: history plutarch 02/05/05 11:25 PM Re: history maverick 02/05/05 11:41 PM Re: history themilum 02/06/05 05:24 AM Re: history plutarch 02/06/05 02:35 AM sprat, a reference to Dali's fish?? tsuwm 02/06/05 04:58 AM Re: history Faldage 02/05/05 11:31 PM Re: history plutarch 02/06/05 12:03 AM d mentally under George Santayana TEd Remington 02/06/05 12:03 AM
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