Ready, Aye, Ready

Sometimes a good classical education gets you into trouble.

Some minor background: before I decided to geek out, I studied English and early medieval history for my A-Levels, and then subsequently completed a BA in English Literature with a concentration in middle English: Chaucer, Malory, the anonymous "Gawain" poet, and through to Shakespeare's revolutionary effect on the language. One of the things I learned quickly was that under all the archaic terminology and phrasing was some remarkably bawdy content. Boring and stale it isn't. I've forgotten most of it now, but not all. Unfortunately.

Anyway, when a poster to a WoW guild board referred to his fellow Americans as "merkins", I, ahem, went all Beavis (or was it Butt-head?) with the above quote, and told him to google the term.

It didn't go over so well. Who knew?

Of course when I had to justify myself, I utterly failed to find any supporting quotes from either Chaucer or Shakespeare. Such is life, I suppose.