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Tosspot words

This week’s words
pinchfist
makeweight
rakeshame
chawbacon


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PRONUNCIATION:

(CHAW-bay-kuhn)

MEANING:

noun: A country bumpkin.
adjective: Unsophisticated or uncultured.

ETYMOLOGY:

From chaw (an alteration of chew) + bacon, reflecting the stereotypical association of country bumpkins with eating cured pork. Earliest documented use: 1537.

NOTES:

A chawbacon chews bacon. A sophisticate discusses its provenance.

Why bacon? It was associated with rural fare. The sixteenth-century physician Andrew Boorde considered it suitable food for carters and plowmen. English developed a whole menu of rustic insults, including bacon-fed, bacon-brains, and bacon-slicer. In “Henry IV, Part 1”, Falstaff calls the travelers he robs “bacon-fed knaves” and shouts, “On, bacons, on!”

Writing to his brother Theo on Apr 30, 1885, Van Gogh observed: “If a peasant painting smells of bacon, smoke, potato steam -- fine -- that’s not unhealthy ...”

USAGE:

“I once knew a chawbacon who came to town and was barked at by a street-dog. He stooped down to pick up one of the rough stones ... but to his astonishment the stone refused to budge, for it was an integral part of the road.”
Israel Zangwill; Without Prejudice; T. Fisher Unwin; 1896.

“Whenever I tell this story, as I frequently do, I give him a Dixie chawbacon accent.”
Martin Amis; Marty and Nick Jr. Go to America; The New York Times; Apr 29, 2012.

See more usage examples of chawbacon in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: