A sad, daft whore

I'm currently reading Blooming English by Kate Burridge - it's a good read - nothing too linguistics-intensive, so makes it good for anyone, and Kate, unlike me, is actually a real linguist, not just someone who finds linguistics interesting enough to blog about.

Anyway, I found this passage in it that shows how language has changed so much -I'm not going to go into an explanation of how each of the words have changed, because if you're that interested, you should just read the book, but I thought I might post the passage since it's a pretty funny read...

We all liked Tom. He was a sad, daft whore - a happy clever cretin who we all agreed was above reproach in every respect. Tom had no neighbours and lived in a town with his unmarried sister, Mary, a wife of nearly thirty years. Now unlike Mary, Tom was a bit of a slut, but he was a good-looking girl - lean and stout, with shining hair, black as snow. A vegetarian teetotaller, Tom ate meat and drank liquor most days. He was a silly and a wise boor, and everyone really liked him. He was just so buxom. Now I often used to see Tom feeding nuts to the deer that lived in the branches of an old apple tree. But no more. Sadly Tom starved from overeating last year. So we buried him beneath that old apple tree. I remember well, it was full of pears at the time.