Strumpet

Strumpet (pronounced struhm-pit)

A woman of loose virtue (archaic).

1300–1350: From the Middle English strumpet and its variations, strompet & strumpet (harlot; bold, lascivious woman) of uncertain origin.  Some etymologists suggest a connection with the Latin stuprata, the feminine past participle of stuprare (have illicit sexual relations with) from stupere, present active infinitive of stupeo, (violation) or stuprare (to violate) or the Late Latin stuprum, (genitive stuprī) (dishonor, disgrace, shame, violation, defilement, debauchery, lewdness).  The meanings in Latin and the word structure certainly appears compelling but there is no documentary evidence and others ponder a relationship with the Middle Dutch strompe (a stocking (as the verbal shorthand for a prostitute)) or strompen (to stride, to stalk (in the sense suggestive of the manner in which a prostitute might approach a customer).  Again, it’s entirely speculative and the spelling streppett (in same sense) was noted in the 1450s.  In the late eighteen century, strumpet came to be abbreviated as strum and also used as a verb, which meant lexicographers could amuse themselves with wording the juxtaposition of strum’s definitions, Francis Grose (circa 1730-1791) in his A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785) settling on (1) to have carnal knowledge of a woman & (2) to play badly on the harpsichord or any other stringed instrument.  As a term in musical performance, strum is now merely descriptive.

Even before the twentieth century, among those seeking to disparage women (and there are usually a few), strumpet had fallen from favour and by the 1920s was thought archaic to the point where it was little used except as a device by authors of historical fiction.  Depending on the emphasis it was wished to impart, the preferred substitutes which ebbed and flowed in popularity over the years included tramp, harlot, hussy, jezebel (sometimes capitalized), jade, tart, slut, minx, wench, trollop, hooker, whore, bimbo, floozie (or floozy) and (less commonly) slattern skeezer & malkin.

There’s something about trollop which is hard to resist but it has fallen victim to modern standards and it now can’t be flung even at white, hetrosexual Christian males (a usually unprotected species) because of the historic association.  Again the origin is obscure with most etymologists concluding it was connected with the Middle English trollen (to go about, stroll, roll from side to side).  It was used as a synonym for strumpet but often with the particular connotation of some debasement of class or social standing (the the speculated link with trollen in the sense of “moving to the other (bad) side”) so a trollop was a “fallen woman”.  Otherwise it described (1) a woman of a vulgar and discourteous disposition or (2) to act in a sluggish or slovenly manner.  North of the border it tended to the neutral, in Scotland meaning to dangle soggily; become bedraggled while in an equestrian content it described a horse moving with a gait between a trot and a gallop (a canter).  For those still brave enough to dare, the present participle is trolloping and the past participle trolloped while the noun plural (the breed often operating in pars or a pack) is trollops.

Floozie (the alternative spellings floozy, floosy & floosie still seen although floogy is obsolete) was originally a corruption of flossy, fancy or frilly in the sense of “showy” and dates only from the turn of the twentieth century.  Although it was sometimes used to describe a prostitute or at least someone promiscuous, it was more often applied in the sense of an often gaudily or provocatively dressed temptress although the net seems to have been cast wide, disapproving mothers often describing as floozies friendly girls who just like to get to know young men.

Strum and trollop weren’t the only words in this vein to have more than one meaning.  Harlot was from the Middle English harlot, from Old French harlot, herlot & arlot (vagabond; tramp), of uncertain origin but probably from a Germanic source, either a derivation of harjaz (army; camp; warrior; military leader) or from a diminutive of karilaz (man; fellow).  It was an exclusively derogatory and offensive form which meant (1) a female prostitute, (2) a woman thought promiscuous woman and (3) a churl; a common person (male or female), of low birth, especially who leading an unsavoury life or given to low conduct.

Lord Beaverbrook (1950), oil on canvas by Graham Sutherland (1903–1980).  It’s been interesting to note that as the years pass, Rupert Murdoch (b 1931) more and more resembles Beaverbrook.

Increasing sensitivity to the way language can reinforce the misogyny which has probably always characterized politics (in the West it’s now more of an undercurrent) means words like harlot which once added a colorful robustness to political rhetoric are now rarely heard.  One of the celebrated instances of use came in 1937 when Stanley Baldwin’s (1867–1947; leader of the UK’s Tory Party and thrice prime-minister 1923 to 1937) hold on the party leadership was threatened by Lord Rothermere (1868-1940) and Lord Beaverbrook (1879-1964), two very rich newspaper proprietors (the sort of folk Mr Trump would now call the “fake news media”).  Whether he would prevail depended on his preferred candidate winning a by-election and three days prior to the poll, on 17 March 1931, Baldwin attacked the press barons in a public address:

“The newspapers attacking me are not newspapers in the ordinary sense; they are engines of propaganda for the constantly changing policies, desires, personal vices, personal likes and dislikes of the two men.  What are their methods?  Their methods are direct falsehoods, misrepresentation, half-truths, the alteration of the speaker's meaning by publishing a sentence apart from the context and what the proprietorship of these papers is aiming at is power, and power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.”

The harlot line overnight became a famous quotation and in one of the ironies of history, Baldwin borrowed it from his cousin, the writer Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) who had used it during a discussion with the same Lord Beaverbrook.  Like a good many (including his biographer AJP Taylor (1906-1990) who should have known better), Kipling had been attracted by Beaverbrook’s energy and charm but found the inconsistency of his newspapers puzzling, finally asking him to explain his strategy.  He replied “What I want is power. Kiss ‘em one day and kick ‘em the next’ and so on”.  “I see” replied Kipling, “Power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.”  Baldwin received his cousin’s permission to recycle the phrase in public.

While not exactly respectable but having not descended to prostitution, there was also the hussy (the alternative spellings hussif, hussiv & even hussy all obsolete).  Hussy was a Middle English word from the earlier hussive & hussif, an unexceptional evolution of the Middle English houswyf (housewife) and the Modern English housewife is a restoration of the compound (which for centuries had been extinct) after its component parts had become unrecognisable through phonetic change.  The idea of hussy as a housewife or housekeeper is long obsolete (taking with it the related (and parallel) sense of “a case or bag for needles, thread etc” which as late as the eighteenth century was mention in judgements in English common law courts when discussing as woman’s paraphernalia).  It’s enduring use is to describe women of loose virtue but it can be used either in a derogatory or affectionate sense (something like a minx), the former seemingly often modified with the adjective “shameless”, probably to the point of becoming clichéd.

“An IMG Comrade, Subverts, Perverts & Extroverts: A Brief Pull-Out Guide”, The Oxford Strumpet, 10 October 1975.   

Reflecting the left’s shift in emphasis as the process of decolonization unfolded and various civil rights movements gained critical mass in sections of white society, anti-racist activism became a core issue for collectives such as the International Marxist Group.  Self-described as “the British section of the Fourth International”, by the 1970s their political position was explicitly anti-colonial, anti-racist, and trans-national, expressed as: “We believe that the fight for socialism necessitates the abolition of all forms of oppression, class, racial, sexual and imperialist, and the construction of socialism on a world wide scale”.  Not everything published in The Oxford Strumpet was in the (evolved) tradition of the Fourth International and it promoted a wide range of leftist and progressive student movements.

Lindsay Lohan in rather fetching, strumpet-red underwear.

The Oxford Strumpet was an alternative left newspaper published within the University of Oxford and sold locally.  It had a focus on university politics and events but also included comment and analysis of national and international politics.  With a typically undergraduate sense of humor, the name was chosen to (1) convey something of the anti-establishment editorial attitude and (2) allude to the color red, long identified with the left (the red-blue thing in recent US politics is a historical accident which dates from a choice by the directors of the coverage of election results on color television broadcasts).  However, by 1975, feminist criticism of the use of "Strumpet" persuaded the editors to change the name to "Red Herring" and edition 130 was the final Strumpet.  Red Herring did not survive the decline of the left after the demise of the Soviet Union and was unrelated to the Red Herring media company which during the turn-of-the-century dot-com era published both print and digital editions of a tech-oriented magazine.  Red Herring still operates as a player in the technology news business and also hosts events, its business model the creation of “top 100” lists which can be awarded to individuals or representatives of companies who have paid the fee to attend.  Before it changed ownership and switched its focus exclusively to the tech ecosystem, Red Herring magazine had circulated within the venture capital community and the name had been a playful in-joke, a “red herring” being bankers slang for a prospectus issued with IPO (initial public offering) stock offers.