What’re Words For, Part 19

Hi there, chummies. It’s that time again here in Philadelphia for candidates to start lining up for the mayoral election. The four-year cycle has come around again, and now Philadelphians can get ready for a long, mud-slinging 9month period where the mayoral-hopefuls tell us their ideas for solving this city’s unbelievable murder rate, the high taxes, the filthy neighborhoods, and the out-of-control pay-to-pay culture that exists within the city’s own government. Of course, none of them will be able to fix anything and are just blah-blah-blah’ing on and on to get your vote. Lucky for me I’m moving back to Maine in July, so I won’t have to be witness to the dirty politics that is so Philadelphia.

It seems appropriate to me that the word this week is so geared towards the people who are running for mayor in Philly.


Word: Scurvy (Adj.)
Definition: dirty or villianous
“Did you see the crew that got off that trawler?”
“Gorry, wasn’t they a scurvy-looking outfit! Hadn’t washed for a month, I’ll bet.”
“I know it. Enough to gag a maggot.”

(Definition from: "How To Talk Yankee", by Gerald Lewis & Tim Sample, copyright 1979, 1986 by The Thorndike Press; copyright 1989 by the First North Country Press)

Have at it Philadelphia. You’ve got mayoral candidate scurvy one, scurvy two, scurvy three, scurvy four, scurvy five, and scurvy six.

Your outlook doesn’t look too good.