h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If a woman had done something that wasn't actually forbidden, but that society nonetheless considered to be scandalous, what might you call her while you were gossiping with your friends behind her back?

A philandering jezebel.

Jezebel? What's a jezebel?

A trollop or a tart, or if it was more serious a slut or a slag. Bitch might be used as well.

Quite surprised that got past the filther. Lest anyone accuse me of misogyny I'd also use those terms for the scandalous behaviour of male friends.

I once played jezebels as an first-turn double-double word in Scrabble, enabled by my opponent putting down a B in the right place. 108 points, if I remember rightly.

B

You call your male friends trollops?

Jezebel is a character from the bible, often used as a reference to a woman of loose morals.

Strumpet also sounds rather British.

Floozy

Cherie?

B

One caveat I forgot to mention... No sexual connotations, please.

Hmm. What should a group of flibbertigibbets refer to someone else as?

I'm having trouble getting into the right frame of mind for this because I don't know what the woman in question has done that is so objectionable. For instance, if the woman's legal but socially frowned-on actions consisted of chewing out her husband or boyfriend, she might be called a harpy or harridan or henpecker. if she cheats at card games, she's a cheater. If she flouts social conventions eveyr chance she gets, she's a nonconformist.

Ignore the beginning part where Satan appears, and pay attention post 1:50
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTKORcr1jhY

How about NOT gossiping behind their back and not calling them anything but their name?

Because it's a comedy and we have to laugh at the character's stupidity.



~*~I'm having trouble getting into the right frame of mind for this because I don't know what the woman in question has done that is so objectionable.~*~

Well it wouldn't matter now. Let's see... How to explain this...

The story takes place in the 1890s in England. Lucy, an upper-class woman, sleepwalks outside her home in the middle of the night. Her friend, Mina, goes out and finds her, then brings her back home. In our modern age no one would care a whit, but back then (for some reason) such a thing could apparently lead to a huge scandal and vicious rumors, so on the way back to the house Mina makes sure they're not seen by anybody and then doesn't mention it to Lucy's doctor later.

Where the joke comes in is that the Doctor is asking Mina questions and Mina frantically denies that any of the above ever happened. She says something along the lines of: "Lucy is a respectable member of the community, not some... some... scarlet woman / trollop / jezebel / strumpet!"

I'm leaning toward jezebel.

Hussy.

As Incognitas says, it's best to avoid such insults, but when I was a girl, if someone had done something nasty, or if the speaker simply didn't like her, she would call her a "cow". I have heard a joke about two modern teenage girls bitching. One calls the other a f**ing cow. And the insulted one complains "She called me a cow!" - the f**ing being of no consequence to her, but the "cow" part really hitting home.

Just goes to show. When I was that age we would never have used the f word. We probably hadn't even heard of it.

Before I reached post 17, I was already mentally composing a post in which I recommended the word "hussy". I can now merely second B's excellent suggestion.

"Slattern" might also work in the context.