SNP’s word of the day: Scuttlebutt

Usage: “Gossip, rumors, scuttlebutt, BS, or just flawed information. I always tune in...” — from Louise Erdrich‘s short story “Shamengwa” (2003).

You should know it because: Even for a notoriously gossipy industry, fashion’s vodka-cooler talk seems a little out of control lately. Most of the rumours swirl around the empty throne at Dior, to which so many disparate successors have been named (Haider Ackermann? Marc Jacobs? Alexander Wang?!) it seems not totally unlikely that Jessica Simpson will be next. When the word on the street—er, the rue—is this silly, scuttlebutt seems the most appropriate term.

It’s old nautical parlance, as is so much colourful English slang, derived from “scuttle” (meaning: an opening in a ship’s deck) and “butt” (meaning: barrel). From this you can extrapolate the newer, newsier term, “leak,” used whenever information escapes. But when it’s more like misinformation, bred of too much curiosity and Chinese-whispering, scuttlebutt is more apt—and way more fun to say.