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Thanks, tsuwm. Now I have another question for you: why, in all the literature I have read, have I not seen the word cadger, instead of what was usually given, peddler? Sometimes junk man, sometimes tinker, sometimes tradesman, but never cadger. And I have read American lit. and British lit., old and new. My Roget's thesaurus doesn't give cadger as a synonym for peddler, nor does the M-W on-line thesaurus, though it does have two other intriguing words: higgler and piepoudre. Anybody got any info. on them? Oh, I nearly forgot--salons are salons, yes. They are NOT saloons--that's a whole diff'runt thang altogether. And neither one of 'em is a car! [stamping foot e] 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear Faldage: Pubic wigs are not comical. Since you know that is the dictionary meaning of "merkin", I think it is wretchedly bad taste and a serious abuse of AWADtalk to use it here. And you are a pathetic hypocrite
to criticise my occasional ribaldry.
MY FELLOW MERKINS
An Internet bad joke
The word merkin is one of the perpetual bad puns of the Internet. I first
came across it in the Usenet newsgroup alt.fan.pratchett (a group devoted
to the works of the British fantasy writer Terry Pratchett, he of the
Discworld fantasies) and it puzzled me. From context, it seemed to be
used as a synonym for inhabitant of the United States of America but it
only slowly dawned on me that those who used it were guying a supposed
half-swallowed pronunciation of "American" by some Americans,
particularly the late Lyndon Johnson.
Then I looked it up and the full force of the pun hit me. The word actually
has a number of senses, all of them sexually-related and, therefore, highly
risible to persons of a certain cast of mind. One of the current standard
ones is pubic wig (such wigs are used, apparently, in the theatrical and film
worlds as modesty devices in nude scenes). It can also be a contrivance
used by male cross-dressers to imitate the female genitals. Another sense
which is even lower slang and which came into the language last century is,
as Eric Partridge delicately puts it in A Dictionary of Historical Slang,
"an artificial vagina for lonely men".
The OED says that its first use in English, in the sixteenth century, was as a
term for the female genitals, but then its sense transferred to the pubic hair,
and from there to artificial pubic hair and then much later to an artificial
vagina. Such is the shifting and inconsistent nature of vocabulary, at least
when the word concerns intimate matters not often spoken of in public nor
written down.
Various people on the alt.usage.english newsgroup (Mark Israel, Paul
Andresen, Mark Brader) have recently been discussing Stanley Kubrick's
1964 film Dr Strangelove, which named the character of the President,
one of the parts played by Peter Sellers, as "Merkin Muffley". This gets
two risqué usages past the censor at once, since "muff" is another slang
term for the female genitals (as in muff-diving for cunnilingus). This name
was presumably the work of Kubrick or his scriptwriters, since the book
on which the film was based (Red Alert by Peter George, pseudonym of
the late Peter Bryant), does not name the presidential character.
No doubt you will understand now why the use of Merkin in Usenet
posts is usually restricted to non-Americans ...
World Wide Words is copyright © Michael Quinion, 1996-. All rights reserved.
Page created 2 January 1996; last updated 26 Februar
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Carpal Tunnel
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In reply to:
I caused puzzlement in a Brit chum when I metioned that I wanted to "wash up" after we had been to a local street fair and before we ventured out for the evening ... and learned that in Brit-speak "washing up" is to wash the dishes after a meal.
Oh, the joys of a common language!
An example oft-quoted when I was at university of a phrase which could give wildly differing images on opposite sides of the Atlantic was "washing up in vest and pants", which on one side means washing the dishes whilst only wearing one's underwear, while on the other I understand it means washing one's face and hands whilst more formally attired.
Bingley
Bingley
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Bingley, I hereby volunteer to wash up your vest and pants.  
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why, in all the literature I have read, have I not seen the word cadger, instead of what was usually given, peddler? Sometimes junk man, sometimes tinker, sometimes tradesman, but never cadger. And I have read American lit. and British lit., old and new. My Roget's thesaurus doesn't give cadger as a synonym for peddler, nor does the M-W on-line thesaurus, though it does have two other intriguing words: higgler and piepoudre. Anybody got any info. on them? cadger in this sense is bordering on being considered archaic, I would think. citations go back to the days of Dickens. A buck hanging on each side o' his horse, like a cadger carrying calves. - Sir Walter Scott, The Black Dwarfpiepowder (the usual spelling) comes from med.(Anglo-)L. pede-pulverosus dusty of foot, dusty-footed, also as n., a dusty-footed man, a dustyfoot, a wayfarer, itinerant merchant, etc.; found also in 15th c. English, and in 15–16th c. Scottish versions of the Burgh Laws. ME. had pie-poudres, pie-powders n. pl., wayfarers, esp. in the designation Court of Piepowders = Court of wayfarers or travelling traders, whence through the attrib. use in Piepowder Court came the less correct Court of Piepowder, a court formerly held at fairs and markets to administer justice among itinerant dealers. a higgler is just a dusty-footed haggler! He was a foot-higgler now, having been obliged to sell his... horse, and he travelled with a basket on his arm.- Thomas Hardy, Tess
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Carpal Tunnel
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Wow! Thank you, tsuwm! Muchly! Court of Piepowder, a court formerly held at fairs and markets to administer justice among itinerant dealers.Wow again, these people had courts of justice?? Fascinating! Were they with real judges (magistrates), you reckon? Or did they perhaps elect one of their own to serve unofficially in this capacity? Golly, I wonder what kinds of cases they heard? CK, Rhuby--any ideas? And, pie powder can only be flour. Though the term's origin had nothing to do with pies, wouldn't it have been interesting if they had had flour courts? Which doubtless would have evolved into Flower Courts, and wouldn't THAT have been something!
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old hand
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old hand
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In Oz "knocked up" has nothing to do with banging on doors (though the mind boggles) or being in the family way.
A "knocked up" Aussie could also refer to him/herself as tired, dead beat, buggered, rooted or f****d.
Being in the family way is more commonly known as being "up the duff" or "having a bellyful of arms and legs"
We are but simple, common folk.
stales
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We are but simple, common folk.
stales
Oooh, ha, ha, ha! Thanks, stales--I needed a good waker-upper!
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Pooh-Bah
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Court of Piepowder, a court formerly held at fairs and markets
Were they with real judges (magistrates), you reckon? Or did they perhaps elect one of their own to serve unofficially in this capacity?
Not really my period, Jackie, but I consider it most unlikely that the democratic process was used! Much more likely to be a Justice of the Peace, the Town Mayor or, most likely of all, an offical appointed by one or other of those dignitaries. The sort of thing that probably would come before such a court would be weights and measures, overcharging, right to stand (i.e, set up stall) in a particular spot and that sort of dispute.
As to Cadgers - it is not a term that I have ever come across to mean pedlar. I am more familiar with the C16 to C19 term, "Badger" for such a trader. They were licensed to go from door to door and from town to town selling their wares (at a time when vagrancy was a real problem and a threat to law and order) and carried or wore a badge that showed they were permitted to do so - hence the term.
Coupés - eary pictures that I have seen of such vehicles showed the back of the roof cut away and replaced by a collapsable canvas hood. Not to be confused with a Landau-style body.
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