Tag Archives: Scatology

Curculio 4: A Sly Joke in The Alchemist?

Posted on Monday: September 30, 2013 by Michael Hendry

Kastril or Kestrel, the ‘angry boy’ of Ben Jonson’s Alchemist, calls his sister his ‘suster’ and says ‘kuss’ for ‘kiss’.1 It is not clear whether this is meant to represent a particular regional dialect, a generalized country accent, or his … Continue reading →

Posted in Blackfriars, Curculio: English, English Literature | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Curculio 3: “Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice . . .”

Posted on Sunday: September 1, 2013 by Michael Hendry

. . . and there are definitely worse possibilities. When one language adopts words from another, it sometimes happens that standard spelling changes create a new pair of homonyms, making two words that were quite different in the source language … Continue reading →

Posted in Curculio: Misc, Etymology, Spanish | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment