Pylimitics

Strategies for avoiding military services have been around as long as military service. In the 1960s in the US, hiding in Canada was popular, as was (among wealthy families) getting “deferrals” for anything from trumped-up physical ailments like bone spurs to academic responsibilities among some decidedly lacking in real scholarly ambitions. Centuries ago, when military service entailed, mostly, wielding swords, clubs, pikes, and similar variations on “a big stick,” one stratagem was to injure yourself in the thumb or thumbs, thus making the core military maneuver of the day — whacking the other guy with a big stick — impossible. 

“Maimed thumb” in Latin is “pollice truncus.” Why do we care? Because in the 1600s the word “poltroon” was used to describe a coward, a mean-spirited person, and a soldier who won’t fight the enemy. In the 1500s the origin of “poltroon” was explained as coming from “pollice truncus.” 

That probably wasn’t true. “Poltroon” probably came, instead, from the Middle French word “poltron,” which simply means “coward.” Italian at the time had a similar word, “poltrone,” meaning a worthless person. 

Wherever it came from, “poltroon” had a long period of use in English. In the book The Caine Mutiny, Captain Queeg is called a poltroon. In the Tintin series, Captain Haddock famously yells after villains (who are, of course, running away from Haddock and Tintin), various insults, and “poltroon” is a prominent one. Some of his others are even better: “troglodytes,” “bashi-bazouks,” and even my favorite, “miserable blundering barbecued blister!”

The various epithets employed by Captain Haddock are provided in sorted alphabetical order at http://www.tintinologist.org/guides/lists/curses.html. Most of them won’t be particularly helpful even if you find yourself in the same position as Haddock and Tintin; modern miscreants are largely unphased at being called “ostrogoths” or even “pickled herrings.” But it does raise an interesting question; what exactly is an epithet anyway, and why are they used when they don’t really have much, if any, effect? 

An “epithet” needn’t be derogatory or hostile. It’s really just descriptive. If you call a guy (or primate) named George Curious George, “curious” is an epithet. The word comes from the Latin “epitheton,” which means “something added.” The suffix “thet” means “to put,” and distinguishes “epithet” from “epigram” (a witty expression; “gram” means inscription), epigraph (an inscription on a building; “graph” means inscription), and epitaph (a commemoration of a deceased person; “taph” means “at a tomb”).

It might be largely due to Captain Haddock (and his colleagues involved in epic adventures) that “epithet” today mostly implies something you’d yell, for example, at a bunch of fleeing slubberdegullions. After all, if you ask your average poltroon what an epithet is, he’d nowadays most likely guess that it was whatever he heard from behind as he quickly exited his previous engagement.