‘A pointing stocke to euery one that passeth vp and downe’: Metonymy in Late Medieval and Early Modern English Terms of Ridicule

Abstract

This paper investigates the derivation of the compound pointing-stock, glossed as ‘a person pointed at; an object of scorn, derision or ridicule’ by the Oxford English Dictionary (henceforth OED). It proposes a metonymic derivation as an alternative to the metaphorical derivation given by the OED for stock-compounds, drawing on the evidence of other words whose meanings show an extension from container to content and more specifically from instrument of punishment to person punished by the instrument. It is argued that the emergence of this type of compound in the late medieval and early modern periods relates to an increase of the use of stocks for shaming punishments and that the verbal nouns that form the first part of stock-compounds describe the treatment people in the stocks were exposed to.