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[Note: this thread was not from a.t., but it deals with a subject near to their hearts]

From: djm8@cornell.edu(NO_SPAM) (Jo Miller)
Subject: it pays to increase your word power (fwd)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 12:06:43 -0600

Steve, Your request sent me to dig in the archives. Here's a little blast from 1994: 

 
 >     Sootikin or Sutikin:
 >
 >A small, mouse-shaped deposit formed in the vaginal cleft, usually
 >of poorer women who did not wear undergarments - common until the
 >nineteenth century. A sootikin built up over several weeks, even
 >months, of not washing. It was composed of particles of soot, dirt,
 >sweat, smegma (qv) and vaginal and menstrual discharge. When it
 >reached a certain size and weight, it tended to work loose and drop
 >from under the woman's skirt.
 >Contemporary writings, including those of Pepys and Boswell,
 >mention men employed in London churches to sweep up sootikins after
 >services. There even exists one scurrilous account, from an
 >anonymous source, of a tell-tale sootikin being allegedly found
 >under - or suspiciously close to - Queen Anne's chair in St Paul's
 >Cathedral during the Thanksgiving Service for the end of the War
 >of the Spanish Succession.
 >
 >
 >oh, that's not lace...
 
__________________

 >From: GSJ
 >Subject: Re: it pays to increase your word power
 >Date: Thu, 14 Apr 1994 21:54:25 -0400
 >
 >Jo,
 >
 >Mmmmmphhh.....I think I'm gonna vomit.....
 >
 >So THAT's the mouse-shaped growth in the vaginal cleft.  I always thought that
 >was the clitoris!  Well, back to the old drawing board.
 >
 >I can just hear the conversation:
 >
 >Wife: Dear?
 >Husband:  Yes, m'love?
 >Wife: Can you please pass the bodkin. I need to remove the sootikin from my
 >     merkin.
 >Husband:  Mmmmmphhhh....I think I'm gonna vomit....
 >
 >
 >Distastefully,

__________________

Date: Sat, 16 Apr 1994 13:49:13 -0400
From: EH
Subject: it pays to increase your word power

Sootikins do Dallas:
Pardon me ma'am, but I think you dropped something...
Please darlin', use the spittoon at the end of the bar.
greg:  A well put together phrase with lots of kin-etic energy.  I'm still
laughing (even as you read this).
 >So THAT's the mouse-shaped growth in the vaginal cleft.  I always thought that
 >was the clitoris!
Well, we can only wish it were that big. Then again, they say size doesn't
matter.
Tootikin -- Mouse shaped deposit of spittle in the Bass Clef.

__________________

From: EAG
Subject: Re: it pays to increase your word power
Date: Fri, 15 Apr 1994 01:00:48 -0400
Oops.
Sootikin.  Soolikin.  What's the bloody difference.
               Doors left wide open on that one
                        Eef

__________________
     
From: AM
Subject: Re: STOP THE MADNESS!!!!
Date: Fri, 15 Apr 1994 15:52:59 -0400
Jo, Greg, Ethan:
PLEEEEEEEEEEESE!  STOP THIS GROTESQUE CHARADE!
Increasingly ill,
andrew
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 95 15:00:00 PDT
From: SB
Subject: sootikindred spirits

Thanks, Jo . That was incredible service. Reason I asked was that I was trying to tell a co-worker about sootikins but couldn't piece together a description as poetic as that one. Meanwhile, she replies: 

>So the particular mixture that comprises a sootikin
>sounds roughly equivalent to offerings that are
>smeared on some african sculpture. Art historians
>call it 'fetish' material.
Indeed.

sb

From: djm8@cornell.edu(NO_SPAM) (Jo Miller)
Subject: sootikinesis
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 14:47:37 -0600

Steve,

Quite so. Especially if the art historians are using "fetish" to mean "of or referring to feta cheese..."

OKAY!! I'll stop.

But only after passing along more fascinating information from my favorite of all books, the Chambers English Dictionary. Apparently we must be careful not to conflate sootikin (a word just *made* for limericks, don't you think?) with "sooterkin" which means--I swear to god-- "a fabulous afterbirth induced by Dutch women sitting huddled over their stoves: a Dutchman: A Negro: a chimney-sweep: anything supplementary, fruitless, or abortive."

I find this definition anything but illuminating and am tempted to believe the Chambers editorial crew got stoned and giggly one night while working on the "S" section, but no matter. I think we should nevertheless attempt to work "sooterkin" into conversation at least once this week. Extra credit if it turns up in a legal opinion or Molière play, and double word score if the sentence also includes "banausic."

Abattoir!
Jo


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