Unhand that maiden, blackguard

The Insider had only one truly interesting mistake last week.

In Mark Twain's description of the crow, the bird is maligned as a thief, swindler and hypocrite, among other unflattering appellations (did everyone notice how “lawyer” snuck its way into the list?), but I doubt that Twain called it a “black guard,” and I suspect that writer Paul Basham had it right when he submitted his piece. The Insider had “black” at the end of one line and “guard” at the beginning of another. In that case, what's missing is a hyphen, for we have one word here: blackguard. My dictionary says that such a person is either “a rude or unscrupulous person” or “one who uses foul or abusive language.” I would call him simply a genuine all-around rotten guy, the kind of person whom the hero used to address with words like “Unhand that maiden, you blackguard!”

By the way, the word is pronounced as if it had a double g instead of a ck: blaggard.

Author: The Concord Insider

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