The Young Lions vocabulary

 With all your broths, your menstrues, and materials,

 Of piss and egg-shells, women's terms, man's blood,

 Hair o' the head, burnt clouts, chalk, merds, and clay,

 Powder of bones, scalings of iron, glass,

 And worlds of other strange ingredients,

 Would burst a man to name?

Ben Jonson. The Alchemist (1610)

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The silence was broken by a single word traveling across the water, softly spoken, but heartfelt in its sincerity.

“Merde,” he said.