Foreword to the dictionary of "The World's Oldest Professions:"
“There is little or nothing to be remembered written on the subject of getting an honest living. Neither the New Testament nor Poor Richard speaks to our condition. One would think, from looking at literature, that this question had never disturbed a solitary individual’s musings.”--Henry David Thoreau.
The word “profession” comes from the verb “to profess,” from the idea that for a person to go into business, to attract customers or clients, he or she needs to make a public declaration, “to profess” to having a specific skill for sale. Traditionally people have hung a shingle outside their business or put up a sign to profess to having a professional expertise. The cries of street peddlers hawking their goods is another time-honored tradition.
The phrase “the world’s oldest profession” is of course a euphemism for prostitution. Simply walking the street can be a way to profess a willingness to do business, too. Some say the second oldest profession is espionage (or the law), though others contend that working as a wife or husband actually deserves a close second. Until now, as far as I know, that’s as lengthy as the enumeration has been.
The euphemism originally sparked the question that the author has attempted to address in this dictionary of work: What were all the world’s ancient professions? That led inevitably to more precise questions: What were the things people did for money (or sustenance) before modern times (i.e., before the 20th and 21st centuries)? That is in fact the subject of this book. Other questions also asserted themselves, such as: What were earlier laborers lives like? What did they earn? And how hard were their labors?
Throughout history, people have been paid to do many different types of work. When civilizations have reached peaks of wealth and sophistication, work became extremely specialized. Those who drew the richest salaries of these eras—Pharaohs, Incas, Emperors, Popes—lived, well, “like kings.” And others—clients, clapperdudgeons, rufflers, trugs—were “poor beggars,” indeed. In between, legions have toiled and perished, practicing and perfecting a thousand trades.
What they have in common is that by earning coin of the realm, by definition, they were all professionals. And as some cynic once said, “All work is prostitution.” The historian, Thomas Carlyle, on the other hand, said: “All work, even cottonspinning, is noble—work alone is noble.” A great many other perspectives on work are contained in the pages of this dictionary, which is brimming with historical insights and ironic asides on men and women’s desperate, ingenious, pell-mell pursuit of filthy lucre. Given time, money-raking pursuits become entrenched, emulated, and named. Even the “snudge,” a thief whose calling is to hide under beds, has a name of his own. This dictionary is a tribute to all the names and the named. Each of the 1,647 entries is a window on a bygone world, seen from the vantage point of economists, poets, historians, lexicographers, tragicomedians, and critics.
Twelve essays by the author, also included alphabetically according to profession, ruminate on questions of money and professional prowess, which, in the the near or more distant past, reached a particularly memorable pitch.
In compiling this dictionary, the author read the Oxford English Dictionary—a work that runs to a dozen volumes and 750,000 words—from A to Z. Not only did the Oxford dictionary’s creators attempt to define all the words in the English language, they drew examples of the words’ usage from everything ever written in English. (Such an ambitious project could not help but be flawed. When the first edition was completed, the lexicographers discovered they had left out a word.) To get an idea of its immensity, two whole volumes—2,400 pages—of the OED are devoted solely to the letter S. Finishing the last entry of the final page of that second volume was one of the author’s happier days. Some of the other dictionaries he consulted include Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, The American Heritage Dictionary, A Dictionary of Americanisms, Hobson-Jobson, and on the lighter side, The Devil’s Dictionary and Flaubert’s Dictionary of Platitudes.
Some of the quotations are drawn from the all-gathering OED, others from a range of writers from throughout history, including Plato, Tacitus, Murasaki Shikibu, Erasmus, Pepys, Gibbon, Michelet, Dickens, Virginia Woolf, P. G. Wodehouse, Mark Twain, Raymond Chandler, and countless others.
Quotations were chosen for their historical specificity, humor, and vividness, to let the long-vanished live again, in all their misery and glory. The people who did the back-breaking work are given their due; the bean counters, engrossers, and tycoons are likewise seen for what they were, and for what they are.
Editorial Note: The author has maintained some of the original—seemingly haphazard—spelling in the more ancient quotations for historical accuracy and old-time’s sake. In addition, he has chosen to include some of the very worst forms of travail—slavery and beggary, which one could easily argue are not professions—in his compendium of The World's Oldest Professions.--RV
“There is little or nothing to be remembered written on the subject of getting an honest living. Neither the New Testament nor Poor Richard speaks to our condition. One would think, from looking at literature, that this question had never disturbed a solitary individual’s musings.”--Henry David Thoreau.
The word “profession” comes from the verb “to profess,” from the idea that for a person to go into business, to attract customers or clients, he or she needs to make a public declaration, “to profess” to having a specific skill for sale. Traditionally people have hung a shingle outside their business or put up a sign to profess to having a professional expertise. The cries of street peddlers hawking their goods is another time-honored tradition.
The phrase “the world’s oldest profession” is of course a euphemism for prostitution. Simply walking the street can be a way to profess a willingness to do business, too. Some say the second oldest profession is espionage (or the law), though others contend that working as a wife or husband actually deserves a close second. Until now, as far as I know, that’s as lengthy as the enumeration has been.
The euphemism originally sparked the question that the author has attempted to address in this dictionary of work: What were all the world’s ancient professions? That led inevitably to more precise questions: What were the things people did for money (or sustenance) before modern times (i.e., before the 20th and 21st centuries)? That is in fact the subject of this book. Other questions also asserted themselves, such as: What were earlier laborers lives like? What did they earn? And how hard were their labors?
Throughout history, people have been paid to do many different types of work. When civilizations have reached peaks of wealth and sophistication, work became extremely specialized. Those who drew the richest salaries of these eras—Pharaohs, Incas, Emperors, Popes—lived, well, “like kings.” And others—clients, clapperdudgeons, rufflers, trugs—were “poor beggars,” indeed. In between, legions have toiled and perished, practicing and perfecting a thousand trades.
What they have in common is that by earning coin of the realm, by definition, they were all professionals. And as some cynic once said, “All work is prostitution.” The historian, Thomas Carlyle, on the other hand, said: “All work, even cottonspinning, is noble—work alone is noble.” A great many other perspectives on work are contained in the pages of this dictionary, which is brimming with historical insights and ironic asides on men and women’s desperate, ingenious, pell-mell pursuit of filthy lucre. Given time, money-raking pursuits become entrenched, emulated, and named. Even the “snudge,” a thief whose calling is to hide under beds, has a name of his own. This dictionary is a tribute to all the names and the named. Each of the 1,647 entries is a window on a bygone world, seen from the vantage point of economists, poets, historians, lexicographers, tragicomedians, and critics.
Twelve essays by the author, also included alphabetically according to profession, ruminate on questions of money and professional prowess, which, in the the near or more distant past, reached a particularly memorable pitch.
In compiling this dictionary, the author read the Oxford English Dictionary—a work that runs to a dozen volumes and 750,000 words—from A to Z. Not only did the Oxford dictionary’s creators attempt to define all the words in the English language, they drew examples of the words’ usage from everything ever written in English. (Such an ambitious project could not help but be flawed. When the first edition was completed, the lexicographers discovered they had left out a word.) To get an idea of its immensity, two whole volumes—2,400 pages—of the OED are devoted solely to the letter S. Finishing the last entry of the final page of that second volume was one of the author’s happier days. Some of the other dictionaries he consulted include Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, The American Heritage Dictionary, A Dictionary of Americanisms, Hobson-Jobson, and on the lighter side, The Devil’s Dictionary and Flaubert’s Dictionary of Platitudes.
Some of the quotations are drawn from the all-gathering OED, others from a range of writers from throughout history, including Plato, Tacitus, Murasaki Shikibu, Erasmus, Pepys, Gibbon, Michelet, Dickens, Virginia Woolf, P. G. Wodehouse, Mark Twain, Raymond Chandler, and countless others.
Quotations were chosen for their historical specificity, humor, and vividness, to let the long-vanished live again, in all their misery and glory. The people who did the back-breaking work are given their due; the bean counters, engrossers, and tycoons are likewise seen for what they were, and for what they are.
Editorial Note: The author has maintained some of the original—seemingly haphazard—spelling in the more ancient quotations for historical accuracy and old-time’s sake. In addition, he has chosen to include some of the very worst forms of travail—slavery and beggary, which one could easily argue are not professions—in his compendium of The World's Oldest Professions.--RV
