Thing Not To Do Today: scoff.

You, write a blog? Huh! Does anyone ever read it?

That dress? It makes you look like a fairy elephant.

You're only up to level eighty-six?

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You don't have to be clever to scoff. You don't have to be clever to be unkind and contemptuous. 

How horrible it must be to harbour such a desire for cruelty.

As it happens there's another sort of scoff, a mostly British and comparatively lovable thing. It means to eat greedily.

That sort of scoff  has a really interesting derivation, too.


Still life by Pieter Claesz 1627.

Thing Not To Do Today: scoff. The word meaning to jeer probably comes from Scandinavia (there's an Old Frisian word skof which means mockery). The word meaning to eat greedily is a variant of scaff, food, which is related to the Dutch schoft, quarter of the day, and hence one of the four daily meals. 

Four? 

Can I be Dutch, please?