BS: 'costermonger' idle curiosity

Subject: BS: 'costermonger' idle curiosity
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 03 Sep 15 - 01:09 AM

I was reading myself to sleep with a Wodehouse novel when I came across a reference to "a costermonger calling attention to his
Brussels sprouts." I realized that I have known the word costermonger (fruit and vegetable seller) for years but have never known what a coster is.

Any well-read person will have learned various words of that type - costermonger, ironmonger, warmonger, hatemonger. Clearly, mongers are getting more disreputable as time passes. Come to think of it, what is "mong"?

Just so you won't lie awake worrying about this, I looked it up in my unabridged dictionary. Coster- comes from costard, a kind of apple. "Mong" goes back to the Anglo Saxon (with a nod to some Latin verb) and means to trade or barter. As early at the 17th C it was associated with the slave trade and was beginning to get a bad reputation.

"Mong" shows that not all four-letter Anglo-Saxon words have to be written with stars replacing the vowels.

It might be interesting to follow up on costard and see if we get to Custard and maybe even the Battle of the Little Big Horn, but not tonight.

Subject: RE: BS: 'costermonger' idle curiosity
From: MartinRyan
Date: 03 Sep 15 - 01:37 AM

When I was a kid, in '50's Dublin, I used to see rather unsavoury lorries emblazoned with the name of the local "fellmonger"... Haven't come across the word for many years.

Regards

Subject: RE: BS: 'costermonger' idle curiosity
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 03 Sep 15 - 01:48 AM

From Molly Malone
"She was a fishmonger, and sure, 'twas no wonder,
Her father and mother they both monged fish too,"

At least, that's what I sing....

Subject: RE: BS: 'costermonger' idle curiosity
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 03 Sep 15 - 03:12 AM

The word originates from 'costard-monger' - a seller of apples.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: 'costermonger' idle curiosity
From: MartinRyan
Date: 03 Sep 15 - 03:51 AM

According to SOED, "costard" derives, via Anglo-Norman, from a Latin word for a "rib". The apple concerned has a ribbed appearance.

Regards

Subject: RE: BS: 'costermonger' idle curiosity
From: Mr Red
Date: 03 Sep 15 - 04:43 AM

I would expect Colonel George Armstrong's antecedents got their name from something like apple/seller and it morphed into Custer. ancestry.co.uk agrees

like Forster came from Forrester. Before many could read or write, spelling was phonetic at best, dependant on accents and not that important.

Subject: RE: BS: 'costermonger' idle curiosity
From: Michael
Date: 03 Sep 15 - 07:25 AM

So is the coffee shop a Coffeecosta?

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: 'costermonger' idle curiosity
From: GUEST,Noreen at work
Date: 03 Sep 15 - 08:03 AM


According to SOED, "costard" derives, via Anglo-Norman, from a Latin word for a "rib"

Ah- hence the intercostal muscles between the ribs.

Subject: RE: BS: 'costermonger' idle curiosity
From: Rapparee
Date: 03 Sep 15 - 08:19 AM

Don't forget "whoremonger."

Subject: RE: BS: 'costermonger' idle curiosity
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 03 Sep 15 - 10:41 AM

Thanks, all, for the further information.

Martin, what was the fellmonger selling? I thought a fell was some kind of landform.

Michael, a coffee shop would be a coffeemonger. A coffeecosta would be a place that either:

puts ribs in your coffee - an unlikely proposition, or
sells coffee and ribs - i.e., a barbecue joint.

I had forgotten that Molly Malone was a fishmonger. My unabridged dictionary listed maybe 60 words ending in 'monger,' some of them pretty odd. What might a punctiliomonger be?

Subject: RE: BS: 'costermonger' idle curiosity
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 03 Sep 15 - 10:55 AM

From Molly Malone
"She was a fishmonger, and sure, 'twas no wonder,
Her father and mother they both monged fish too,"

At least, that's what I sing....

"She was a fishmonger, and sure, 'twas no wonder,
For so were her father and mother before,"

is the version that I know. The DT has much the same but with "father and mother" reversed to "mother and father".


A fellmonger sells animal hides.


DC

Subject: RE: BS: 'costermonger' idle curiosity
From: Reinhard
Date: 03 Sep 15 - 11:02 AM

Fell is the German word for fur, too.

Subject: RE: BS: 'costermonger' idle curiosity
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 03 Sep 15 - 11:11 AM

A punctiliomonger would appear to be someone who insists on scrupulous attention to detail, though I'm open to correction if I'm wrong.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: 'costermonger' idle curiosity
From: MartinRyan
Date: 03 Sep 15 - 11:24 AM

GUESTleenia

Yes - a fellmonger dealt in animal skins and hides. The "fell" part turns up in a number of Northern European languages - and is probably related to English "pelt", also.

Where I went to school in Dublin in the '50's, the smell that permeated the classroom depended on the wind... From one direction it would be spent hops and other enticing odours from Guinness' Brewery. From the other, the less pleasant aroma from a knackers yard a mile or two away. I suspect I'm remembering the lorry signs from the latter.

Regards

Subject: RE: BS: 'costermonger' idle curiosity
From: Penny S.
Date: 03 Sep 15 - 04:42 PM

A bit of idle searching threw up:

cheesemonger
gossipmonger
newsmonger
rumourmonger
scandalmonger
scaremonger

Only one of which seems likely to be historic, and related to the root of selling things.

Subject: RE: BS: 'costermonger' idle curiosity
From: Rapparee
Date: 03 Sep 15 - 06:54 PM

"Whoremonger" appears in "Measure for Measure" as does "fleshmonger," a word that goes back at least to 1518.

Subject: RE: BS: 'costermonger' idle curiosity
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 03 Sep 15 - 09:40 PM

Thanks, all, for the elucidation of 'fellmonger.'

Penny, your words, except for cheesemonger, show how mongers are looked askance at nowadays.

Subject: RE: BS: 'costermonger' idle curiosity
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 03 Sep 15 - 09:54 PM

A punctiliomonger would be someone who can't tell the difference between the original lyrics, and a teeny bit of satire.

Subject: RE: BS: 'costermonger' idle curiosity
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 01:42 AM

WHEN THE COSTER'S FINISHED JUMPING ON HIS MOTHER (on his mother)
HE LOVES TO LIE A'BASKING IN THE SUN (in the sun)
AH, TAKE ONE CONSIDERATION WITH ANOTHER (with another)
A POLICEMAN'S LOT IS NOT A HAPPY ONE

AHHH
WHEN CONSTABULARY DUTY'S TO BE DONE, TO BE DONE,
A POLICEMAN'S LOT IS NOT A HAPPY ONE (happy one)

(from Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan).

Subject: RE: BS: 'costermonger' idle curiosity
From: MartinRyan
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 04:15 AM

"Whoremonger" featured regularly in Patrick O Brian's novels IIRC.

Regards

Subject: RE: BS: 'costermonger' idle curiosity
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 05:19 AM

must go into Tesco today and say to the lady in the deli, am i addressing the cheesemonger madam?

Subject: RE: BS: 'costermonger' idle curiosity
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 05:29 AM

Well , off topic , but also out Of curiosity, where did " haberdasher" come from ?

Subject: RE: BS: 'costermonger' idle curiosity
From: Rumncoke
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 08:04 AM

Perhaps from the German -

hab er dass, herr?

Subject: RE: BS: 'costermonger' idle curiosity
From: Reinhard
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 08:50 AM

According to Wikipedia, haberdasher "is most likely derived from the Anglo-Norman hapertas, meaning small ware."

And, as leeneia said how mongers are looked askance at nowadays, would a used car salesman be a carmonger?

Subject: RE: BS: 'costermonger' idle curiosity
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 09:09 AM

"Ironmonger" is still an honourable trade.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: 'costermonger' idle curiosity
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 09:54 AM

True. And there's nothing wrong with fishmonger or cheesemonger, either.

Reinhard, I like 'carmonger.'

Subject: RE: BS: 'costermonger' idle curiosity
From: GUEST,crazy little woman
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 10:00 AM

All these years I've wondered about that line from "A Policeman's Lot," I thought it had something to do with accosting a victim.