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> Droud is interesting. I must look up its derivation. It may be too obscure to pass my editor's muster. <

also, Larry Niven seems to have used droud in a completely different sense : a wire providing current directly to the pleasure center of the brain.

almost all of the words in the GD come from two source books; this one seems to be from Elster's There's a Word for It!, which he lists with the given def'n and without attribution. it's not in OED or W3; but my Old and Cheap unabridged gives "a codfish [Scot.]" -- I suppose this might have been extended to a fishwife sense.

anyway, I tried "oafish woman" in OneLook's reverse dictonary and got several pages worth of results.

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stranger
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The Reverse Dictionary is a great source - many thanks!

Wench in its archaic sense would work, with clumsy prefixed (you clumsy wench), but the modern connotation of wench implies a frisky or sexy nature that isn't appropriate. It's those little nuances that make it so interesting, and so difficult.

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Quote:

The Reverse Dictionary is a great source - many thanks!




I have to echo that statement.

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I am using archaic terms. She (my character) has used oaf, dolt, lout, boor, and many other wonderful words that have slipped from common usage. But I'm suddenly in the situation where she needs to apply them to a woman.

Cow?

Edit: just checked your bio, Dean; looks like 50% of your state is enrolled here now.

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I can see the challenge. Many of the feminine insult words have gained an additional sexual meaning or mean bad tempered rather rather than graceless. Lump might work. Or besom, I think it just meant woman before turning into an insult. Hag or crone are more about looks and age.

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Quote:

Edit: just checked your bio, Dean; looks like 50% of your state is enrolled here now.




and don't forget dellfarmer, must mean 75%...


formerly known as etaoin...
#150302 11/16/05 12:10 PM
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Not quite it, but slattern comes to mind.

If all else fails you might append a feminine suffix to some of these words, like loutette, doltress, and so on.

#150303 11/16/05 12:18 PM
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trollop

#150304 11/16/05 12:34 PM
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stranger
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Quote:

If all else fails you might append a feminine suffix to some of these words, like loutette, doltress, and so on.




This is more appropriate than you realize. My character is constantly creating insults (thickwit, dungherd, steambrain). Feminizing a few insults fits right in.

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I'd like to see "witch", "hag" and "crone" removed from the list of acceptable insults. I'm a witch - a practitioner of witchcraft - and these are all terms from the Craft. I consider using them as insults on a par with using "Jew" as a term for "cheat". That used to be acceptable and is now recognized as a slur.

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