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

It's a great word for being up to no good isn't it!

Now there's a word, and once again the Shorter Ox has never heard of it. Chambers comes up trumps, though: "underhand practices; trickery". It then refers you to "sculduddery" ( - Short Ox) which is "(Scottish, facetious) breach of chastity; bawdy talk or writing . . . [Origin obscure]".

Ever notice how many curious words in the dictionary are Scottish? We come across them all the time playing Scrabble (we permit investigative use of the dictionary). Has it anything to do with the fact that Chambers, like the Oxford, was compiled by a Scot?

Chambers is your only man.

It's cos the Scots invented EVERYthing, obvioulsy.

Including spelling mistakes....

Sculduddery = "breach of chastity"

Is there any etymological explanation. Gaelic, I presume? And while we're on the subject of earthy old words, can anyone explain the origin of "cuckold". I have a vague feeling that it is an anglified French word.

(I thought we'd dealt with this here, or in the original thread, but a search produced nothing promising, except another thread which is some help: F35584?thread=45722&post=321507#p321507 )

It certainly has a Gaelic feel to it, but the etymology's a bit vague. As far as I can tell it comes from another Scots word skugry, meaning secrecy.

Cuckold does indeed mean you've been cuckooed. The original Latin is cuculus, and the Normans brought cucualt with them from France.

"Cuckold does indeed mean you've been cuckooed. The original Latin is cuculus, and the Normans brought cucualt with them from France."

So it never happened here before the d**n French arrived?

I'll see your skull-duggery and raise you one jiggery-pokery.

~jwf~

Well, the cuckoos were certainly most likely at it before the French came.

Not quite sure how it works, something about the cuckoos natural nesting and mating behaviors, as seen and judged from a human point of view, gives rise to the idea of being cuckold.

I seem to recall that cuckoos sometimes abdandon their own eggs, or maybe they adopt or borrow eggs from another species. Whatever it is - and I hope someone knows for certain - it is quite 'natural' behaviour for cuckoos but it's another example of how human beings expect critters to be as nice as we are. We are very quick to pass judgment on critters that don't behave like 'good people' ought to.

Strangely, the idea of imaginary horns or antlers growing from the forehead of the cuckold doesn't seem to fit either human or bird behaviour. Never really understood this. Like most fully developed adult males of my generation I have experienced cuckolding from all possible sides, angles and points of view. Even felt the little stubs protruding from my skull. But what they might have to do with egg stealing birdies I have no idea.

~jwf~

The cuckoo produces its eggs in the normal way, but lays them in other birds' nests. Tiny wrens and robins don't even mind - they foster the babies anyway. Apparently, according to the entry mentioned above (A283150) they tend to choose the same species as they grew up with themselves to foster their own children.

So really, it doesn't have much to do with cuckolding, more with squatting, and not being bothered to build their own nests.

Although cuckolding is used in terms of adultery generally, I'd have thought the idea is of the husband rearing a child that is not his own.

There was I programme on BBC1 this week 'From here to paternity'. I didn't see it, but the write up quoted an estimated 5 - 20% children are growing with fathers who don't realise they are not the biological dad.

That's certainly it; the cuckold is fooled into spending money, time, effort and thought and other resources on a child that is not his; evolutionarily a profitable move by the cuckoo, a bad one for the cuckold.

Evolutionarily smart moves are amoral. Perhaps fooling another parent into raising your child is arguably less "immoral" than for instance eating the other parent; but it's nonsense, morality just doesn't apply.

Pathetic fallacy. Morals belong in another category, viz. interpersonal relations.

Sculduddery: I can't find many promising scol- words in my Irish dictionary. Scol (pronounced skull) means a shoal or great quantity; scolaim (verb) means to sing, shriek, scream, laugh aloud or lament; scoláire is a scholar. The most promising thing is scolladh (pron. skulla) "scolding". Sculduddery could conceivably be scoldworthy behaviour. But not all specially Scottish words come from Gaelic -- bonny, tassie (cup) and many others come directly from French, by the Mary Queen of Scots French connection no doubt. Aye could conceivably be "oui" though it is also foreshadowed in Old Norse.

Auld Lang Syne is morphed English: old long since.

Cheers Recumbentman.
Your efforts are appreciated and I much prefer your 'scoldworthy' theory to the old images of zombies, ghouls, grave-robbers and necrophilia which the expression usually conjures for me and which I will now try to replace with a wagging witchy finger.

And thanks to TC for explaining cuckold. As Teaswill suggests it is being so widely used in meanings of adultery in general that the actual facts had been unknown to me. I will reserve the word for its true usage in future, though many step-fathers of my acquaintance will not want to hear it and I may never actually get to use it correctly.



That leaves only the question of 'horns'. Why is the jealous victim of a woman's sexual betrayal portrayed as having horns on his forehead?

There are several references in Shakespeare so it is an oldy and the truth is possibly lost with all the other good old pagan myths swept away by post-Guttenberg literacy and the religion from Rome.

Usually the context in Shakespeare implies that is a well-known and familiar condition and context further suggests it might be the kind of 'manly' information that is only shared in moments of intimate heterosexual male camaraderie and carousing.

There is also the expression 'horny' meaning sexually aroused. It is now used by both genders. While I can see where a unicorn horn could be seen as phallic, I doubt this is the where the idea of the cuckold's horns comes from because these are usually a matched set or pair and the condition is usually described as horns in the plural unlike the singularity of the male member.

The power of suggestion being what it is, and me being very susceptible to suggestion (especially when emotional distraught) I have actually felt bumps growing above my temples. Was I simply experiencing 'suggestion' or some universal psycho/physiological symptomology?


~jwf~

I'm pretty sure the concept of "horns" signifying a betrayed husband (only that way round, as far as I know) is known in other countries, too. Somewhere in the cobwebbed dungeons of my memory I think that the French would use "cornu" for the same thing.

Perhaps it was a form of ridicule used generally, and eventually for this specific case.

A man "having a bit on the side" doesn't seem to have been worthy of a vocabulary of its own. At least, I can't think of any references in Shakespeare off hand, nor can I summon a female version of "cuckold". Presumably it was a perfectly acceptable thing and the wife just had to put up with it.

"Chambers, like the Oxford, was compiled by a Scot?

Chambers is your only man."

Wherefore this "Chambers"? Speak, fellow!

I think the horns make reference to the horns of the goat.
In some people's minds, the nanny picks her mates, not the other way around. So it becomes a kind of reverse harem. It also suggests that the male in question is not fully performing his incumbent duties.

I nearly forgot - in German, too, the idea of "gehörnt" (horned) - means cuckolded. But it's a fairly old-fashioned thing, just as in English.

Chambers Dictionary refers to more words than the others, many times more than the Shorter Ox (the two-volume one). It is the official arbiter for Scrabble, and it is a beauty.

I suspect the origin of the cuckold's horns lies in the hand-sign which I think of as predominantly Italian. One points two fingers, the index and little finger, in derision at the unfortunate victim.

This is comparable to the "figo" or two-fingered come-on sign used by whores which equally became a sign of derision, and is also metioned in Shakespeare and Rabelais ("under my cloak a fig for the King"). I know there is a theory that the two-finger sign as a gesture of defiance stems from the English archers showing off their healthy bow-fingers to the French in the Hundred Years' War, but the two usages could well have become confused.

>> ..think the horns make reference to the horns of the goat. <<

Yes. I think TR is on to something here.
I'd always been thinking more of antler type horns.
Not the classic Stag image with the full rack but the little velvety bumps where new antlers begin to grow. It just didn't make sense.

But yes, the goat is often a symbol of sexuality.
The goat-footed Pan and lesser gods come to mind. A randy lot.
The Devil is sometimes pictured goat-footed and horned.

What were those goat-footed horned guys pictured in classical paintings carrying off nubile young virgins?
And I believe Diana the Huntress turned a man into a goat once and this left him totally focused on sex but unable to get it on. These are old memories, very vague, so unclear.

But if as TR suggests the 'Nanny' goat does rule the roost and the 'Billies' follow her around, then even the names Nanny and Billy suggest an imbalance of power and authority.

My thinking on this whole subject has taken a turn for the better. I hope we're heading in the right direction. Very interesting that it seems to be not just an English idea, but has equivalents in other languages. The idea must be deeply rooted in antique mythology.

Where are our experts?
(Many are over there somewhere arguing pointlessly about racism in LOTR.)

~jwf~

Or are hesitant to be thought of as expert in cuckoldry?