I'm searching YouTube clips of QI in attempt to demonstrate that a fact really was read out on the show that would surely be of interest here:

- Now, I already knew that until the 20th century the proprietry cure for syphilis contained huge quanitites of mercury. It wasn't clear whether it worked or not, but certainly what was true was that the cure ( Read more... )

Does anyone know if there is any evidence (from the films, interviews with cast and crew, DVD extras, posts at Wordplay etc..) that Scarlett and Giselle are actually prostitutes, or is this something we have all just assumed?

Many thanks...

Dear all

Molly Joyful’s List Of Useful Resources has been updated! Many new links for you, on all aspects of life in the 18th century. Some very interesting links this time: figure heads, the history of toilet paper, Nelson in a jar, Nelson in a barrel, actresses in the 18th century, how to avoid hanging by being pregnant, Royal Navy ghostbusters ( Read more... )

Gay subcultures in eighteenth century Europe seems fairly well-researched.

I'm wondering whether anyone in the eighteenth century used lubrication.  I'm fairly well-read in Rude Books From The Old Days, and it seems like a lot of people might not have bothered with lube.  I know homosexuals in the late nineteenth century used petroleum jelly (cause I read an extremely gross and non-sexy book about Oscar Wilde).

However, ( Read more... )

Another question for all you lovely, helpful people out there: What words for sex were used in the 18th Century?

Today we have words like shag, screw, hump etc... but how would Captain Jack et al have referred to sex?

Many thanks. :)

This is before the period POTC is set in, but I can imagine Jack reading Wilmot's work and commiting favorite bits to memory. There are some quotable song lines, and it also gives a view of how sex might be spoken of in the late 17th/early 18th century. Coarse language doesn't often survive because it's censored or destroyed, so it's interesting ( Read more... )

Exerpt: Miss B____rn. No. 18 Old Compton Street, Soho….This accomplished nymph has just attained her 18th year, and fraught with every perfection, enters a volunteer in the field of Venus. She plays on the pianoforte, sings, dances, and is mistress of every manoeuver in the amorous contest that can enhance the coming pleasure; is of the middle ( Read more... )