MY RECENT observations about the quirkiness of the English language and in particular last week’s foray into vulgar words appear to have tickled a number of readers.

In particular, John Forder emailed me to say one of his favourite words is ‘mallemaroking’, which means ‘the carousing of sailors in an ice-bound vessel’.

“I learnt the word many years ago,” he writes. “Unfortunately, one does not get much chance to use it.”

However, one day an opportunity finally arose for Mr Forder to wax lexical about mallemaroking, thanks to a programme about Arctic exploration on TV.

“They talked about a ship that got stuck in the ice for many months. ‘I wonder what they did,’ said my wife. ‘Probably spent the time mallemaroking’, said I triumphantly. I’d waited a quarter of a century for that moment.”

How does Tunners follow that? Well, maybe by laying before you a second week of offerings from Francis Grose’s Classical Dictionary Of The Vulgar Tongue from 1785.

Last week, I mentioned ‘punk’, which I considered a modern word. The dictionary also refers to ‘funk’, which I’ve always associated with late 20th Century music, but which Grose defined as ‘to smoke’.

Here are a few more vulgar offerings for your delectation:

Blowsabella - a woman whose hair is dishevelled and hanging about her face.

Dark cully - a married man who keeps a mistress.

Idea pot - the knowledge box or head.

Dandy prat - an insignificant or trifling fellow.

Prinking - dressing too nicely.

Jerry sneak - a henpecked husband.

Potato trap - the mouth.

Jack whore - a large masculine overgrown wench.

Rum doxy - a fine wench.

Whirlygigs - testicles.

Water betwitched - very weak punch or beer.

Prattling box - the pulpit.

Rabbit catcher - a midwife.

Queer kicks - a bad pair of breeches.