Image by Highway Patrol Images (HB 203 'STOP POLICE" signaling cars to pull in) [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Today's word: esclop (n.) police officer.

This is from The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English:

esclop noun a police officer. However, the "c" is not pronounced, and the "e" is generally omitted, thus "slop". First noted by Henry Mayhew in London and the London Poor 1851. UK, 1851.

P.S. I'm aware that if you pronounce "esclop" as indicated in my previous note, then the meter is wrong. However, I'm thinking pretty much everyone will pronounce it as written, and I don't want to deal with complaints from people who didn't read the note ;-)

My much-treasured Christmas present for 2017 is a book by Paul Anthony Jones: "The cabinet of linguistic curiosities". Each page contains a descriptive story about some obscure or archaic word. It occurred to me it would be a fun exercise to try and write, each day, a poem featuring the "word of the day" from the book.

Thanks for reading.

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