>VERBOSE Maximum verbosity.

As I’ve discussed in the past, a lot of our insulting terms for people started out as class signifiers:

a villain was originally a villein (another term for serf).

a knave was a servant (often the "knave" and the "knight" were opposing pairs) but also a low-status and thus dishonorable person.

likewise, "flunky," "minion," "lickspittle" and similar terms all originally were different (mostly insulting) terms for servants.

"vagrants," "vagabonds," and "sturdy beggars" were all descriptions of homeless people, either who were seen as inherently criminal and dangerous because they were disconnected from the feudal system. There is a strong crossover to anti-Romani/anti-Zigany slurs, as well as the "rootless cosmopolitan" variant of anti-semitism, in this category.

similarly, "bumpkins," "yokels," "rubes," "hicks," "rednecks," etc. were all insulting terms for people from rural areas, usually denoting their lack of education, sophistication, and their working in outdoor manual labor.

for some gendered versions, "sluts" and "slatterns" originally had connotations of being dirty, unkempt, and being a low-ranked servant like a scullery or kitchen maid (i.e, they're dirty because they're doing "the dirty work").

rascal: originally meant "people of the lowest class, rabble of an army"

lewd: originally meant "common uneducated people", and the phrase "learned and lewd" meant everyone in a society, both those who are educated and those who aren't

riff-raff: derogatory from the start, it originally meant "someone who loots dead bodies after a battle". It's a class signifier because there's a huge double standard here: the main looting of dead bodies was done on the spot, by the soldiers of the winning side, and under the supervision of their officers, who got all the choice bits. The riff-raff looted the leftovers of the first looting, the refuse (that's one sense of the word "raff"), trifle things like belts and buckles or whatever got overlooked. So looting in livery is fine and proper, and indeed it's how people were expected to make a buck in the army, but once the army has passed and left behind corpses, the poor devils who rifle through the muck to get a buckle, and who maybe wouldn't have to if the same army hadn't "foraged" i.e. plundered their village on the way to the battle, are despicable, the dregs of society, refuse rifling through refuse.

vulgar: originally meant "common people"

varlet: originally meant "servant, attendant of a knight", soon ended up meaning "rascal, rogue"

coistril (obsolete): originally meant "an inferior groom or lad employed by an esquire to carry the knight's arms", ended up meaning "mean and coward"

scullion / scuddler (Scottish): originally meant "servant of the lower classes", usually someone who does the cleaning and scrubs all day long, also meant "low, base person"

bard (Scottish only): "a term of great respect among the Welsh, but one of contempt among the Scots, who considered them itinerant troublemakers", so it's in the vagrant/vagabond category

and of course

rogue: originally meant "vagabond" in the 1560s, and "dishonest rascal" in the 1570s. It only took a decade, if it was ever neutral, and not derogatory from the start. The 1572 Vagabonds Act legally defined rogues as people with no land, no master, and no legitimate trade or source of income.

See also:

2026 July 12

Galaxy NGC 474: Shells and Star Streams Image Credit & License: CFHT, Coelum, MegaCam, J.-C. Cuillandre (CFHT) & G. A. Anselmi (Coelum)

Explanation: What’s happening to galaxy NGC 474? The multiple layers of emission appear strangely complex given the relatively featureless appearance of the elliptical galaxy in less deep images. The cause of the shells is a topic of research, but they are possibly tidal tails related to debris left over from absorbing numerous small galaxies in the past billion years. Alternatively, the shells may be like ripples in a pond, where the ongoing collision with the spiral galaxy just to the right of NGC 474 is causing density waves to ripple through the galactic giant. Regardless of the actual cause, the featured image dramatically highlights the increasing evidence that the halos of some elliptical galaxies are surprisingly complicated. Similarly, the halo of our own Milky Way Galaxy is one example of such unexpected intricacies. NGC 474 spans about 250,000 light years and lies about 100 million light years distant toward the constellation of the Fish (Pisces).

In writingdose's post: A cartoon character made of a blue sphere with big eyes and a mouth and white-gloved hands that aren't attached to the face/body. It has a sneaky, plotting, calculating expression that's a little evil, with its fingertips pressed together. Text over the top says "when the hyperfixation reaches the 'changing your pfp' stage:" In the second and third images, part of the text is scribbled out and written over to say "when the hyperfixation reaches the 'opening AO3' stage:" and then "when the hyperfixation reaches the 'fanfic writing' stage:"

In ceph-lol-pog's post: Screenshot of a tumblr tag that says "#about to reach the making a spreadsheet stage".

/end description]

There was one episode with a trans woman getting different gender-affirming operations, including breast implants. It showed the procedure, and (what I found so fascinating that it's stuck with me for decades), as soon as the doctor put the implant in, a censor blur popped up on the nipple.

And you just know there was a meeting between the TLC lawyers and the editors and producers of the show to discuss what the difference was between a "man nipple" (can be shown) and a "woman nipple" (no no must obscure, 'tis naughty). And they decided that as soon as the implant goes in and the nipple has more mass behind it, that's the moment when it becomes a woman's nipple and must be hidden to comply with TV rules.

But it's the same nipple. On the same person. I know what it looks like; I just saw it. But TV and obscenity rules are rules, and the rules say woman nipple = sexual and therefore explicit, but man nipple = neutral, just fine.

Safe-

Suggestive- (I don't imagine you mind given your writing, but just in case anyone else out there in the studio audience would prefer not to click.)

Queen! Belt out a banger of a turnmaxing moid

Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns

Tell me about a complicated man. Muse, [...]

who highkey through savage sidequests toughed it

driven time and again off course, [...]

tell me how he wandered and was lost

after chopping Troy-town to dogfood deadass

once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy.

when he had wrecked the holy town of Troy,

Sailed through sick storms and dealt with dramas

Many cities of men he saw and learned their minds many pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea,

and where he went, and who he met, the pain he suffered in the storms at sea, and how

Locked in to lead his fam to a homey safe space

fighting to save his life and bring his comrades home.

he worked to save his life and bring his men back home.

Talk of the trips and trenches, the sus opps he faced how the GOAT cooked and vibed with the randos though he lowkey took the L on that mission when his bros

But he could not save them from disaster, hard as he strove – the recklessness of their own ways destroyed them all,

He failed to keep them safe; poor fools,

Like NPCS blundered badly to beef with the big G

the blind fools, they devoured the cattle of the Sun

they ate the Sun God’s cattle, and the god

and got ghosted, permablocked, cooked completely.

and the Sungod blotted out the day of their return. . . .

kept them from home. . . .