Browsing Chaucer-in-modern-English, I came across a word I didn't know. Checking OED gave a definition that didn't seem to fit, and a claim that the word had only been used once -- two centuries after Chaucer. So I went back to Chaucer in the original Middle English.

Boy, did OED make a mistake!

The word is quonium, which Chaucer spells quonyum. According to OED:

quonium: Obs. rare¯¹ (See quot.)
1609 HEALEY Disc. New World 69 The drinke is sure to go, be it out of Can, Quoniam, or Iourdan. [Note. A Quoniam is a glasse..well knowne in Drink-allia.]

But Chaucer's Wife of Batht says the following in her prologue. It's pretty clear what that lusty woman, and it isn't cup, though it does begin with cu-

And trewely, as myne housbondes tolde me,
I hadde the beste quonyam myghte be
. . . .[And truly, as my husbands told me,
. . . .I had the best cu** that might be]

!

We discussed the Wife of Bath's uhhh - assets a few months ago! My, how the old girl gets around!
https://wordcraft.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/93260709...391094784#5391094784

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Perhaps this wasn't a mistake so much as an "editorial decision" -- the words 'fuck' and 'cunt' were excluded from OED1 at the insistence of the Victorian Delegates. Although those particular headwords were added back in for the Supplements, many obs. rare entries have probly never <ahem> been touched.

Can, Quoniam, or Iourdan

Not sure why it's a mistake. The Healey citation in the OED is a direct quotation, not the OED's gloss (it's found in the margin of the MS), and it is found in another source, Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present (1904) by Farmer and Henley, vol v, p.354, which gives both definitions, though no Chaucer citation in other sense. I see that Q, under the editorship of Craigie, was published in 1902, so the Henley-Farmer dictionary probably got it from the OED. Eric Partridge, in his dictionary of slang, gives:

quote:

quoniam. A drinking-cup of some kind: drinking s.: early C. 17. Healey, 1609, 'A Quoniam is a glasse ... well knowne in Drink-allia.'—2. The female pudend: low: C. 17-18. ? a learned pun, suggested by quim (q.v.), on Latin quoniam whereas (all males desire it).

Not so sure about Partridge's etymology (though I immediately thought of the Latin word, too.) But, definitely, words with those initial sounds would probably suggest cunt to the alert: cf. coney-catching, which have have also discussed before. (There may also be some sort of natural semantic overlap between the female pudendum and a drinking vessel. Note that the first word in Healey is can which is also a euphemism for ass (UK arse).) But, that aside, I see no reason that we have two actual and separate senses or words. The less delicate meaning having not made it into the first edition as tsuwm suggests because of Victorian delicacy. It would certainly be fun to have a list of all the terms the Wife of Bath uses for her naughty bits.

[Fixed formatting.]

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quote:

Originally posted by shufitz:
The drinke is sure to go, be it out of Can, Quoniam, or Iourdan.......

Re: Iourdan, and other unorthodox drinking vessels ...

Might this not be jordan which is, I believe, an obsolete term for chamber pot. I can't find it in my dictionary, so I stand to be corrected. Right next to where it ought to be is listed is jorum.."a large drinking bowl."

Hmm - I wonder if Dan Brown could use this to support the "woman as the sacred chalice" theory? She has the best "cup", does she?

Could this also be related to the word quim?

quote:

Originally posted by Caterwauller:
Hmm - I wonder if Dan Brown could use this to support the "woman as the sacred chalice" theory? She has the best "cup", does she?

A sacred swiss woman named Alice? {CH Alice) Seriously, a uterus does resemble an inverted vessel, so it doesn't seem to be a stretch (for the vessel, not the uterus, which does stretch)

jordan

I think you're on to something. John Healey's translation was of a satirical book by Joseph Hall Mundus alter et idem. Wikipedia (using text verbatim from the 11th edition of Britannica) describes the book: "an excuse for a satirical description of London, with some criticism of the Romish church, its manners and customs, and is said to have furnished Swift with hints for Gulliver's Travels". So, the questions are (1) what is the original of the citation above? and (2) was quoniam really a word for a kind of drinking vessel or simply an obscene joke by the translator?

[Addendum: I found the passage (via this glossary entry) in the Latin: et, ut Plautinus ille, scaphio, cantharis, batiolia bibunt. (And, as in the works of Plautus, they drink from a cup, goblets, and bowls.) [Mundus alter et idem, p.435.] Latin scaphium 'boat shaped drinking cup; chamber pot.', cantharus 'wide-bellied drinking vessel with handles, tankard', and batiola 'a small drinking cup, a goblet'. There is a line in Plautus Stichus quibus divitiae domi sunt, scaphiis cantharis batiocis bibunt, at nos nostro Samiolo poterio (Each one to his own station; they, who have wealth at home, drink from cups, goblets, and bowls; we, if we are now drinking from our Samian jug, still build our walls according to our means). So, in the original, it's more about scatological than genital humor.]

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