Benford's G&S Lexicon Entries for The Grand Duke
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Act II
Pertaining to sepulchers (graves) and by extension: deep and gloomy.
Pronunciation: Pronounce it with a hard g
A bogy is any sort of a frightening apparition. Ernest, being technically dead, is therefore a technical bogy. Rees (251) adds that Gilbert probably was punning on “technical bogy,” meaning a flaw in a carelessly drafted Act of Parliament or other regulation –– about equivalent to “technical boo-boo.” After all, it was an Act of Parliament, so to speak, that declared Ernest to be dead.
British slang meaning to back out of an agreement.
A two-quart bottle. (This entry and the next five are from a song by the baroness that is omitted in most versions of the libretto.)
A glass filled to the brim –– as in “pirate bumpers.”
An 1874 vintage champagne of particular acclaim (and another anachronism).
Cure-all, from a Greek word meaning “universal remedy” (26).
Stedman (273) recalls that Dickens refers to sliced oranges with powdered sugar in Martin Chuzzlewit. The implication is that the baroness’s party was an austere affair.
A variant on poaching: to intrude on another’s property, usually to take game or fish without permission.
Short for auricular: pertaining to the ear or hearing.
A “quantity of goods bought or sold together, often containing several different kinds of things usually of inferior quality” (290). Usually sold at a low price (56).
A resort area and stretch of coast on the Mediterranean, encompassing south-eastern France and north-western Italy.
A pair of advertising posters carried front and back over the shoulders of some poor devil who is paid to parade them around town.
One interested in the scientific study of coins and medals (75). (The word is omitted from some editions.)