An Unfortunate Locution

[Mike Schilling]

From _A Prefect's Uncle_:'Be firm, my moral pecker,' thought Gethryn, and
braced himself up for
conflict.

[Ian Michaud, TWS]

Post by Mike Schilling
From _A Prefect's Uncle_:'Be firm, my moral pecker,' thought Gethryn, and
braced himself up for
conflict.

He was quoting W. S. Gilbert, who in the Bab Ballad "The Haughty Actor"
wrote,
"Dispirited became my friend,
Depressed his moral pecker."

Also in the Gilbert and Sullivan one-act opera "Trial By Jury" Edwin
(tenor), the defendant in a breach of promise lawsuit, enters by
singing, "Be firm, be firm, my pecker."

In his "The Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan" Ian Bradley informs his
readers that in the first edition of the libretto this line was "Be
firm, my moral pecker.", which provides us with Gethryn's exact quotation.

In this case pecker is slang for mouth, so he is actually saying
something like 'keep a stiff upper lip' or 'keep your chin up.'

The Mixer

[Ken Miner]

In this case pecker is slang for mouth, so he is actually saying something
like 'keep a stiff upper lip' or 'keep your chin up.'
The Mixer

Yes, apparently from 'peck' (to eat, more or less), from which we get
'peckish'. But I have found few longer or more convoluted etymologies in the
OED than the one for this verb.

[Mike Schilling]

Post by Mike Schilling
'Be firm, my moral pecker,' thought Gethryn,
and braced himself up for
conflict.

From _The White Feather_:

"What a beast Peteiro looked. He really was a n****r".