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prettygoodwordhodmandod (HOD-man-dod) - n., (S. Eng. dial.) a snail.
Occasionally survives in rural places, but not as well as its Middle English ancestor, dodman (from dod, a bare rounded hilltop, from dodden, to make the top of something bare), which is still heard in Norfolk. But I think we can all agree that hodmandod is a much better word than dodman. Especially for a snail. First shows up in print in a 1593 pamphlet by Gabriel Harvey attacking playwright Thomas Nashe as "a dodkin author, whose two swords are like the horns of a hodmandod."
---L.
Occasionally survives in rural places, but not as well as its Middle English ancestor, dodman (from dod, a bare rounded hilltop, from dodden, to make the top of something bare), which is still heard in Norfolk. But I think we can all agree that hodmandod is a much better word than dodman. Especially for a snail. First shows up in print in a 1593 pamphlet by Gabriel Harvey attacking playwright Thomas Nashe as "a dodkin author, whose two swords are like the horns of a hodmandod."
---L.
