Slut

Slut (pronounced sluht)

(1) A woman of loose virtue; one who seeks sexual partners to an extent thought wantonly excessive (vulgar and usually derogatory).

(2) By extension, a prostitute (now rare, presumably because as it came to be applied more widely, such use began to lack precision.

(3) By extension, someone who seeks attention through inappropriate means or to an excessive degree (vulgar, figuratively and usually derogatory) . 

(4) By analogy, a person with seemingly undiscriminating desires for or interests in something (coffee-slut, chocolate-slut etc).

(5) A kitchen maid or servant (obsolete).

(6) An slovenly, untidy person (historically usually applied to women and now rare).

(7) A bold, outspoken woman (always derogatory and now obsolete). 

(8) A female dog (obsolete, bitch the replacement although that's now sometimes avoided because of the way it's used offensively against women). 

(9) A rag soaked in a flammable substance and lit for illumination, tied or mounted usually to a long handle (obsolete).

Circa 1400: From the late Middle English slutte (a dirty, slovenly, careless, or untidy woman) which may be either derived from or related to "sloth" and the first known use in print was in the medieval "Coventry Mystery Plays"; the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) lists it as "of doubtful origin" and though paired alliteratively with sloven (which also first appears there) both suggestive of "lewd, lascivious woman", this remains uncertain.  It’s thought likely cognate with the dialectal German Schlutt (slovenly woman), dialectal Swedish slata (idle woman) and Dutch slodde or slodder (a careless man) but the exact relationship of all these is obscure.  In dialectical Norwegian, there was slut (mud) and slutr sleet (dirty liquid) in which meaning, like future adoptions, tended to the impure.  It’s thought related also the Middle Dutch slore, the Modern Dutch slomp and the German schlampe, the latter enjoying some popularity in the English-speaking world.  Etymologists have also suggested the possibility of a link with the Old English (West Saxon) sliet & slyt, (sleet, slush) which may be compared to the Norwegian dialectal slutr (snow mixed with rain), the connection being the sense of "the impure or dirty".  Slut is a noun & verb; sluttish, slutty, sluttier & sluttiest are adjectives, sluttishness & sluttiness are nouns, the noun plural is sluts.

Another of those English words with meanings changing over centuries, in 1402 slut meant roughly what one sense of slattern means today: a slovenly, untidy woman or girl.  It also meant kitchen maid although Geoffrey Chaucer (circa 1344-1400) used sluttish to describe both them and the appearance of an untidy man but as early as the end of the fifteenth century the sense had emerged as a woman of loose virtue, though not (yet) a prostitute although in the 1660s there are examples of the use of the word to refer to "playful young women" without any suggestion of a sexual overtone.  By the mid-fifteenth century, slut had come to be used of "kitchen & scullery maids" and from this the meaning was transferred to the labors: as late as the eighteenth century the hard pieces of imperfectly kneaded dough were called slut's pennies and dust left to gather on a floor was slut's wool.  The meanings ran in parallel until the nineteenth century; Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) thought the main use of the word was to suggest untidiness and a Samuel Pepys' (1633–1703) diary note in 1664 uses it as a term of endearment to commend the cheerful efficiency of one of his kitchen maids.  By the late twentieth century, the modern meaning had subsumed all others and was applied almost always pejoratively.  However, there were some in the late 1990s who adopted slut in the names of websites with content broader than the more specialised in the genre, an example of which was the now sadly defunct literary discussion and book-review site, bookslut.com, edited by feminist critic and author Jessa Crispin (b 1978).  A newer site, https://www.thebookslut.com now exists, seeming to function as an all-purpose clearing house for all things literary.

Before the advent of modern science gave rise to the extraordinary proliferation of technical terms, probably no purpose in English was so productive in the manufacture of words than the need to insult or disparage women and as an element, "slut" did its bit to contribute.  Although there are no rules which dictate exact use, there are dirty sluts, total sluts, pub sluts, slum sluts, ugly sluts, supersluts and slutbags.  Those thought sluts form part of the sluthood and exist in a state of slutdom; if one sleeps with one on a casual basis, one has had a slut stand and when observing her among the others in a slutfest, one might have noticed her was styled in slutstrands (two strands of hair (left & right) pulled down around the face with the rest pulled back.  Surprisingly, although sluts wear certain sorts of shoes, they're described not a slut-shoes but as "fuck-me shoes" (which isn't too literal because "fuck-me shoes" can be boots).  Among adjectives, the common form is slutty, the comparative sluttier & the superlative sluttiest but the simpler form is simply that one slut "out-sluts" another; a judgment inherently subjective.  The male slut was often a term of (sometimes grudging) admiration and referred to a promiscuous man who could sometimes be said to be a slut-maker.  A job slut was someone who often switched occupations and that could be used either neutrally or in a derogatory sense although in politics, the term "political prostitute" became popular and "political slut" did not, presumably because the intended implication was that the switching of allegiances was venal.  As a self descriptor without a sexual connotation it was once widely used but has become less popular because of feminist criticism (which must be why there were Facebook sluts but not TikTok sluts although the latter may be applied in a different context).  Once, there were press sluts (also known as media tarts in the digital age), coffee-sluts, beer sluts, chocolate-sluts, party sluts and book sluts, the terms all indicating an indiscriminate consumption of or addition to whatever was referenced.  To confuse English speakers, in Swedish, a slutstation is not what people variously may imagine but a part of public transport infrastructure meaning a terminus (the end-station at which a service terminates); figuratively it's used to mean "a final destination".  English visitors, returning home from Sweden have been known to nickname nightclubs with a certain reputation "slutstations".

Slutwalk, Toronto, Canada, April 2011. 

In the twenty-first century, feminists sought to claim the word and began a campaign socially to construct slut-shaming as an unacceptable form of bullying or discrimination.  Just as overtly political have been the slut-walks, the first of which was held in Toronto, Canada in April 2011 in reaction to comments by a police officer suggesting women were at least partially complicit in sexual assault by dressing in certain ways and that in their own interest, they should “…avoid dressing like sluts".

The police hastened to issue a flurry of apologies but that was perceived as crisis management rather than any indication of cultural change and the slut-walk soon followed, since repeated in many cities world-wide, sometimes as regular events.  Despite that, expressions of “victim blaming” continue to be issued by figures of authority.  A stated aim at the time was to redefine "slut" to describe someone in control of their own sexuality, to rid the word of any negative connotations.  That seemed linguistically ambitious but, although there are in English words which over time have come to mean the exact opposite of what they once did, it’s wrong to describe this as part of the “reclaim the word” movement.  It’s more of an attempt at re-appropriation like the successful campaign which gained “gay” its new exclusivity.  From within feminism came a critique which thought the word slut a distraction, something which attracted too much of the news media’s focus at the expense of the substantive issues: (1) a right to choose one’s clothing without fear of harassment, (2) the right to inhabit public space on the same basis as men and (3) that consent to sexual activity must always be explicit and can never be deemed to be implied on the basis of clothing or other signal.  This view suggested the issue was not the right to self-label as a slut but the right for women actually safely to exist in a time and place on the basis of their choice.

The RHS

The cocktails called the Red-Headed Slut (RHS) or the Ginger Bitch are identical.  Although variations exist, the original is served on the rocks, poured over ice, either in a old fashioned (rocks) glass or a highball.  Quantities of ingredients can vary but the alcohol components should always be equal.

Ingredients

(1) One part Jägermeister
(2) One part peach schnapps
(3) Cranberry juice

Instructions

Combine Jägermeister and schnapps in glass full of cubed or crushed ice. Add cranberry juice to fill glass. Stir as preferred.

It may be served as a shooter, chilled and shaken but without ice.   One popular derivative includes equal parts Jägermeister, Schnapps, Crown Royal, and cranberry-flavored vodka.  Some substitute Chambord for the cranberry juice, and sometimes Southern Comfort for the schnapps.  For a sweeter taste, apricot brandy can be used instead of schnapps and best of all, there’s the Angry Red-Headed Slut which adds rum (over-proof or two shots to increase the degree of anger).

Lindsay Lohan enjoying an eponymous: Surely an affectionate homage, the Lindsay Lohan is a variation, the Lohanic version taking a classic RHS and adding a dash of Coca-Cola (usually expressed as "coke").  It should be served in a highball or other tall glass.

Slum

Slum (pronounced sluhm)

(1) A densely populated, run-down, squalid part of a city, now usually on the outskirts, inhabited by poor people (often used in the plural).

(2) Any squalid, run-down place, especially if used for human habitation.

(3) As slumming it, (1) to visit slums, especially from curiosity or (2), to visit or frequent a place, group, or amusement spot considered to be low in social status or (3), to use goods or services of lesser quality or cheaper than those to which one is accustomed.

(4) Slang for a shabbily dressed person, essentially the noun form of those slumming it (in sense of (3) above) and can be used (“the slums” or “those slums”) as a collective noun for groups of the poorly dressed (now rare).

1825 (noun) & 1884 (verb): A truncation of back slum (dirty back alley of a city, street of poor or low people (1825)), it was initially a slang or cant word meaning "room" and most especially "back room” (1812).  Slumscape, a use drawn from landscape to describe depressed urban housing was first noted in 1947 but never became a popular form although slum-lord (1899), from slum-landlord (1885) was in common use until well into the twentieth century, the use in England diminishing after housing and hygiene regulations began to impose standards improving the condition of rented housing.  Slum is of unknown origin, though there is support from some etymologists for the theory of the imperfect echoic, possibly from a foreign accent.  The most common related form now is used most often in the phrase “slumming it”, an expression indicating (sometimes voluntary) use of some service or product lower in standard than that to which one is accustomed.  The other related forms, slummy, slummily and slumminess are rare probably to the point of being archaic.

Gladstone.

The word first enjoyed popular use as a verb because it was popular in Victorian novels set in London’s East End, the negative association gained from the meaning "to visit slums for disreputable purposes or in search of vice" (1860).  The first modification of the verb form seems to date from 1884 in the sense of "visit slums of a city", especially as a diversion or amusement for the middle-class, often under guise of philanthropy.  Tempting though it is because of the timing, there’s nothing to suggest an etymological connection with the habit of William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898; variously the UK's chancellor of the exchequer or prime minister 1852-1894) of visiting slums, sometimes after midnight, for his "rescue work": meeting prostitutes on the street, recording their names in his little black book so that he might secure their salvation by arranging worthy and gainful employment.  Sometimes he would take them home for tea and readings from scripture.  Late in life, sensing perhaps the end was nigh, he clarified his role in a "Declaration" executed in his own hand on 7 December 1896.  Embossed with an embargo it was be unsealed only after his death, Gladstone wrote, "I desire to record my solemn declaration and assurance, as in the sight of God and before His Judgement Seat, that at no period of my life have I been guilty of the act which is known as that of infidelity to the marriage bed."  There’s some commendably Clintoneque precision there.

Slumming it: Lindsay Lohan with former special friend, Samantha Ronson, NYC subway, 2008.

Tatterdemalion

Tatterdemalion (pronounced tat-er-di-meyl-yuhn or tat-er-di-mal-yuhn)

(1) A person in tattered clothing; a shabby person.

(2) Ragged; unkempt or dilapidated.

(3) In fashion, (typically as “a tatterdemalion dress” etc), garments styled deliberately frayed or with constructed tears etc (also described as “distressed” or “destroyed”).

(4) A beggar (archaic).

1600–1610: The original spelling was tatter-de-mallian (the “demalion” rhymed with “Italian” in English pronunciation), the construct thus tatter + -demalion, of uncertain origin although the nineteenth century English lexicographer Ebenezer Cobham Brewer (1810-1897) (remembered still for his marvelous Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1894) suggested it might be from de maillot (shirt) which does seem compelling.  Rather than the source, tatter is thought to have been a back-formation from tattered, from the Middle English tatered & tatird, from the Old Norse tǫturr.  Originally, it was derived from the noun, but it was later re-analysed as a past participle (the construct being tatter +‎ -ed) and from this came the verb.  As a noun a tatter was "a shred of torn cloth or an individual item of torn and ragged clothing" while the verb implied both (as a transitive) "to destroy an article of clothing by shredding" & (as an intransitive) "to fall into tatters".

In parallel, there was also the parallel "tat", borrowed under the Raj from the Hindi टाट (ṭāṭ) (thick canvas) and in English it assumed a variety of meanings including as a clipping of tattoo, as an onomatopoeia referencing the sound made by dice when rolled on a table (and came to be used especially of a loaded die) and as an expression of disapprobation meaning “cheap and vulgar”, either in the context of low-quality goods or sleazy conduct.  The link with "tatty" in the sense of “shabby or ragged clothing” however apparently comes from tat as a clipping of the tatty, a woven mat or screen of gunny cloth made from the fibre of the Corchorus olitorius (jute plant) and noted for it loose, scruffy-looking weave.  Tatterdemalion is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is tatterdemalions.  The historic synonyms were shoddy, battered, broken, dilapidated, frayed, frazzled, moth-eaten, ragged, raggedy, ripped, ramshackle, rugged, scraggy, seedy, shabby, shaggy, threadbare, torn & unkempt and in the context of the modern fashion industry, distressed & destroyed.  An individual could also be described as a tramp, a ragamuffin, a vagabond, a vagrant, a gypsy or even a slum, some of those term reflecting class and ethnic prejudice or stereotypes.  Historically, tatterdemalion was also a name for a beggar.

A similar word in Yiddish was שמאַטע‎ (shmate or shmatte and spelled variously as schmatte, schmata, schmatta, schmate, schmutter & shmatta), from the Polish szmata, of uncertain origin but possibly from szmat (a fair amount).  In the Yiddish (and as adopted in Yinglish) it meant (1) a rag, (2) a piece of old clothing & (3) in the slang of the clothing trade, any item of clothing.  That was much more specific than the Polish szmata which meant literally "rag or old, ripped piece of cloth" but was used also figuratively to mean "publication of low journalistic standard" (ie analogous the English slang use of "rag") and in slang to refer to a woman of loose virtue (used as skank, slut et al might be used in English), a sense which transferred to colloquial use in sport to mean "simple shot", "easy goal" etc.

Designer distress: Lindsay Lohan illustrates the look.

Tatterdemalion is certainly a spectrum condition (the comparative “more tatterdemalion”; the superlative “most tatterdemalion”) and this is well illustrated by the adoption of the concept by fashionistas, modern capitalism soon there to supply the demand.  In the fashion business, tatterdemalion needs to walk a fine line because tattiness was historically associated with poverty while designers need to provide garments which convey a message wealth.  The general terms for such garments is “distressed” although “destroyed” is also used.

Dolce & Gabbana Distressed Jeans (part number FTCGGDG8ET8S9001), US$1150.

It seemed to start with denim and before distressed was a thing, manufacturers had dabbled with producing jeans which even when new gave the appearance of having been “broken in” by the wearer, the quasi-vintage look of “fade & age” achieved with processes such as stone washing, enzyme washing, acid washing, sandblasting, emerizing, and micro-sanding.  Still, this was just to create an effect, the fabrics not ripped or torn.  Distressed jeans represented the next step in the normal process of wear, fraying hems and seams, irregular fading and rips & tears now part of the aesthetic.  As an industrial process that’s not all that difficult to do but if done in the wrong way it won’t resemble exactly a pair of jeans in which the tatterdemalion is a product of gradual degradation, because different legs would have worn the denim at different places.  In the 2010s, the look spread to T-shirts and (predictably) hoodies, some manufactures going beyond vermillistude to actual authenticity, achieving the desire decorative by shooting shirts with bullets, managing a look which presumably the usual tricks of “nibbling & slashing” couldn’t quite emulate.  Warming to the idea, the Japanese label Zoo released jeans made from material torn by lions and tigers, the company anxious to mention the big cats in Tokyo Zoo seemed to "enjoy the fun".  Others emulated the working-class look, the “caked-on muddy coating: and “oil and grease smears” another (apparently short-lived) look.  All these looks had of course been seen for centuries, worn mostly by the poor with little choice but to eke a little more wear from their shabby clothes but in the 1960s, as wealth overtook Western society, the look was adopted by many with disposable income; firstly the bohemians as a display of contempt for consumerist culture and later the punk movement which needed motifs with some capacity to shock, something harder to achieve than had once been the case.

Distressed top and bottom.  Gigi Hadid in distressed T-shirt and "boyfriend" jeans.

For poets and punks, improvising the look from the stocks of thrift shops, that was fine but for designer labels selling scruffy-looking jeans for four-figure sums, it was more of a challenge, especially as the social media generation had discovered that above all they liked authenticity and faux authenticity would not do, nobody wanting to look it to look they were trying too hard.  The might have seemed a problem, given the look was inherently fake but the aesthetic didn’t matter for its own sake, all that had to be denoted was “conspicuous consumption” (the excessive spending on wasteful goods as proof of wealth) and the juxtaposition of thousand dollar distressed jeans with the odd expensive accessory, achieved that and more, the discontinuities offering irony as a look.  The labels, the prominence of which remained a focus was enough for the message to work although one does wonder if any of the majors have been tempted to print a QR code on the back pocket, linked to the RRP (recommended retail price) because, what people are really trying to say is “My jeans cost US$1200”.

1962 AC Shelby Cobra (CSX2000), interior detail, 2016.

The value of selective scruffiness is well known in other fields.  When selling a car a tatty interior will usually greatly depress the price (sometimes by more even than the cost of rectification).  However, if the tattiness is of some historic significance, it can add to car’s value, the best example being if the deterioration is part of the vehicles provenance and proof of originality, a prized attribute to the segment of the collector market known as the “originally police”.  In 2016, the very first AC Shelby Cobra (CSX 2000) sold for US$13.75 million, becoming the most expensive American car sold at auction.  Built in 1962, it was shipped to the US as an AC Ace (without an engine although it apparently wasn't AC's original "proof-of-concept" test bed which was fitted with one of the short-lived 221 cubic inch (3.6 litre) versions of Ford's new "thin-wall" Windsor V8) where the Shelby operation installed a 260 cubic inch (4.2 litre) Windsor and the rest is history.  The tatterdemalion state of the interior was advertised as one of the features of the car, confirming its status as “an untouched survivor”.  Among Cobra collectors, wear caused by Carroll Shelby's (1923–2012) butt is the most valuable tatterdemalion.

Just a scratch: Juan Manuel Fangio, Mercedes-Benz W196 Streamliner, British Grand Prix, Silverstone, 1954.

Also recommended to be repaired before sale are dents, anything battered unlikely to attract a premium.  However, if a dent was put there by a Formula One world champion, it becomes a historic artefact.  In 1954, Mercedes-Benz astounded all when their new grand prix car (the W196R) appeared with all-enveloping bodywork, allowed because of a since closed loophole in the rule-book.  The sensuous shape made the rest of the field look antiquated although underneath it was a curious mix of old and new, the fuel-injection and desmodromic valve train representing cutting edge technology while the swing axles and drum brakes spoke to the past and present, the engineers’ beloved straight-eight configuration definitely the end of an era.  On fast tracks like Monza, the aerodynamic bodywork delivered great speed and stability but the limitations were exposed when the team fielded “the streamliner” at tighter circuits and in the 1954 British Grand Prix at Silverstone, Juan Manuel Fangio (1911–1995; winner of five world-championships) managed to clout a couple of oil-drums (that how track safety was then done in F1) because it was so much harder to determine the extremities without being able to see the front wheels.  Quickly, the factory concocted a functional (though visually unremarkable) open-wheel version and the sleek original was thereafter used only on the circuits where the highest speeds were achieved.  In 1954, the factory wasn’t concerned with maintaining originality and repaired the tatterdemalion W196 so an artefact was lost.

1966 Ferrari 330 GTC (1966-1968) restored by Bell Sport & Classic.  Many restored Ferraris of the pre-1973 era are finished to a much higher standard than when they left the showroom.  Despite this, genuine, original "survivors" (warts and all) are sought after in some circles.

In the collector car industry, tatterdemalion is definitely a spectrum condition and for decades the matter of patina versus perfection has been debated.  There was once the idea that in Europe the preference was for a vehicle to appear naturally aged ( well-maintained but showing the wear of decades) while the US market leaned towards cars restored to the point of being as good (or better) than they were on the showroom floor.  Social anthropologists might have some fun exploring that perception of difference and it was certainly never a universal rule but the debate continues, as does the argument about “improving” on the original.  Some of the most fancied machinery of the 1950s and 1960s (notably Jaguars, Ferraris and Maseratis) is now a staple of the restoration business but, although when new the machines looked gorgeous, it wasn’t necessary to dig too deep to find often shoddy standards of finish, the practice at the time something like sweeping the dirt “under the rug”.  When "restored" many of these cars are re=built to a higher standard, what was often left rough now smoothed to perfection.  That’s what some customers want and the finest restoration shops can do either and there are questions about whether what might be described as “fake patina” is quite the done thing.  Mechanics and engineers who were part of building Ferraris in the 1960s, upon looking at some immaculately “restored” cars have been known wryly to remark: “that wasn't how we built them then.” 

Gucci offered Distressed Tights at US$190 (for a pair so quite good value).  Rapidly, they sold-out.

The fake patina business however goes back quite a way.  Among antique dealers, it’s now a definite niche but from the point at which the industrial revolution began to create a new moneyed class of mine and factory owners, there was a subset of the new money (and there are cynics who suggest it was mostly at the prodding of their wives) who wished to seem more like old money and a trend began to seek out “aged” furniture with which a man might deck out his (newly acquired) house to look as if things had been in the family for generations.  The notoriously snobbish (and amusing diarist) Alan Clark (1928–1999) once referred to someone as looking like “they had to buy their own chairs”, prompting one aristocrat to respond: “That’s a bit much from someone whose father (the art historian and life peer Kenneth Clark (1903–1983)) had to buy his own castle.”  The old money were of course snooty about the folk David Lloyd George (1863–1945; UK prime-minister 1916-1922) would call “jumped-up grocers”.