Just idle curiousity, but does anyone know why chamber pots were referred to
as "looking glasses"? Boggles the mind!
Lucy Wayne
>Mary Ellin, Richard & al.,
>
>There are several historical dictionaries around for tracing earlier and
>obsolete meanings of words and expressions. I'm currently using "The Penguin
>Dictionary of Historical Slang" by Eric Partridge, Penguin Books 1978,
which, by
>the way, lists the following:
>
>"- looking-glass. A chamber pot: ca 1620-1830, then dial(ectal). N.B. The
>English Dialect Dictionary (by Joseph Wright, 1896-1905). Beaumont &
Fletcher.
>Prob. ex the attention paid to it by physicians."
>
>Gerard Gusset
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>
>