Lee from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, remembers her Danish grandmother breaking up a loud argument between Lee’s mother and aunt by telling the twins, you sound like fishwives! To yell like a fishwife or to quarrel like a fishwife means to shout or argue loudly, harshly, and often with colorful language. The wife in fishwife goes back to an Old English word that simply meant “woman,” while a fishwife was any woman, married or not, who sold fish. The name of London’s Billingsgate fish market, near the Tower of London, became so associated with such fishwife talk that Billingsgate itself came to mean “coarse or vulgar language.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “What “Yell Like a Fishwife” Means, and How “Billingsgate” Came to Mean Coarse or Vulgar Language”
Hello.
You have A Way with Words?
My name is Lee, and I’m calling you from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Welcome to the show, Lee.
What’s on your mind?
Thank you.
I’m happy to be able to share something with you.
My mom and her sister were twins.
As a matter of fact, we kids call them Heckle and Jackal.
They were always up to something.
And of the twins always found something to argue about.
One afternoon, my grandmother and I were sitting in the kitchen, and the twins were at it.
And they’re getting louder and louder and louder.
Mind you, it was probably over a lipstick.
My grandmother was a five foot sturdy Danish firebrand.
She she she broke no nonsense from anybody.
Mhmm.
As we continue as the arguing continues, she gave me the eye.
Grahams stood up, put her hands on her hips, marched herself into the living room.
Of course, I was her shadow.
She got up to the twins, and she looked at them and very sternly said, I’ve had it with you two.
You two are so loud.
You sound like fishwives.
Fishwives.
Fishwives.
Yes.
She used that expression, ay, that’s the first time I heard it.
But she did continue to use it throughout her life if anybody was getting loud.
I was a fishwife.
Yeah.
Well, that expression has been around for many, many years.
It’s not just original to her.
To yell like a fishwife, or scream like a fishwife, or quarrel like a fishwife, or scoop like a fishwife, or swear like a fishwife.
All of those mean when you do that, you’re doing it loudly and harshly, and often with colorful language.
I don’t know if that was the case in your No, that wouldn’t have been the case there.
But the word fishwife is really interesting because the wife in fishwife actually goes back to the old sense of weef in old English, which means simply woman.
So a fishwife was a woman, married or not, who, was selling fish.
And if you picture a crowded fish market Right.
Hundreds of years ago, women are selling fish, and they’re having to advertise these highly perishable items over the noise of their competitors, other fish sellers, then they’re going to be loud and maybe trying to get you to come over with some coarse language or something like that.
And so, fishwives working in the fish market this stereotype for these booming voices and uninhibited language.
And the most famous fish market in London was the Billingsgate Fish Market.
It was, it was near the Tower Of London, and, Billingsgate itself has come to You’ll mean coarse sometimes see it, in books or hear people use the term Billingsgate to refer, to No.
How about that?
I’ve never heard that.
The weef that you were talking about, we see that’s still an alewife or midwife.
It’s pretty fossilized when it appears.
That old meaning of just woman.
Wifman is the root of It’s woman.
Yeah.
Of the word woman.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So there you go.
How about that, Lee?
I think it’s You take care of yourself and Thank you.
Be because I am.
Alright?
Yes, you take care.
It was great speaking with you.
Bye bye.
Bye.
Take care.
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