You say sauce, I say sawce

I've recently been informed that "saucebox" is listed in Webster's 11th, so I could play English teacher and tell you to figure it out for yourself if you want to know what it means. But I have been an English teacher and so I know that you probably won't. Furthermore, I've also been informed that the word can seem a little PG-13 when out of context, such as being the title of a blog or being written in bleach on a wifebeater. So here is a little explanation.

"Saucebox" was a popular insult in the 18th century (and I believe in the 17th and some of the 19th too). I first encountered it in novels like Clarissa and Pamela, in which it gets hurled (along with other zingers, like "boldface") at the ever-resisting heroines. But saucebox is not just for women, oh no. Here is an example:


If you can't find the "saucebox," give "faucebox" a try. This is a page from a 1790 edition of Noah Webster's American Spelling Book. And if you can't read it, it's a charming story about a little boy who climbs a tree to steal (or fteal, if you prefer) apples. The nice old man who owns the tree tries to get the young rascal down by throwing grass at him, but this is clearly ludicrous and the boy, to his credit, only laughs. The story ends happily when the man moves on to chucking stones and the boy learns his lesson.

This fable might be usefully modified for today's primers, substituting some kind of electronics store for the apple tree, etc. But speaking of spelling books, you may have noted that while I've been telling you all about sauceboxes, my blog address is "sawcebox." This is because "saucebox" was already taken. Can you believe it? But fortunately the 18th century was a time of many spellings. The two versions, along with sauce-box and sawce-box, get used more or less interchangeably, even within a single text. And so...200 years of spelling standardization down the drain. Sorry, Mr. Webster.