hodmandod

[prettygoodword]

hodmandod (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.

Comments

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

Invective used to be so much more entertaining!

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

More invective:

... the son of a mule, a raw grammarian, a brabbling sophister, a counterfeit crank, a stale rake-hell, a piperly rimer, a stump-worn railer, a dodkin author, whose two swords are like the horns of a hodmandod; whose courage [is] like the fury of a gad-bee; and whose surmounting bravery, like the wings of a butterfly.

—from Pierce’s Supererogation, or a New Praise of the Old Ass

---L.