Lobcocks and fartleberries - Francis Grose

If someone called you a beetle-browed bastardly gullion and told you to shut your bone box, would you be offended? If you lived in 1785, you most certainly would!

Harking back to a time when insults and rude words were considerably more colourful, this selection from the original slang dictionary of 'The Vulgar Tongue' includes such gems as:

Bitch Bobby - A country Wench

Lobcock - A large relaxed penis, also a dull inanimate fellow

Captain Francis Grose, an elected fellow of the society of Antiquaries, travelled extensively throughout the British Isles and featured in several of Robert Burns' poems. He died in Dublin of an apoplectic fit in 1791.