Outrageously Funny Word Dictionary :: Black shanked

👉 Okay, let’s tackle that wonderfully prickly bit of a word – "…black shanked." Immediately upon saying that, I feel like I need to preface this by stating: nobody actually
says
that unless they're either really into old-time fiddling (specifically the Cornish fiddlé style, historically) and have a very specific, perhaps slightly morbid, sense of humour.

Basically, a “…black shanked" fiddle is a fiddle where its slottedఎస్‌, which are those thin grooves along the neck, that hold the strings, have been painstakingly filed down – literally blackened by the filing itself – into a really aggressive, almost vicious point. 19th century fiddlé fiddles were often made of very cheap wood (swan wood was unfortunately quite common, and swan necks are… pointy) and because they were slapped together with absolutely zero respect for the string pegs, the slots would inevitably weaken and spread. The fiddlé makers then, as a somewhat desperate and frankly rather unsettling practice, would aggressively file down the slottedఎస్‌ into these incredibly sharp points. Here's what made it funny (and awful): 1. You weren’t supposed to actually touch the filing point, you were meant to just flick the strings with your right-hand thumb. 2. Because of that vicious filing, there was a very high risk of… ripping a thumb. Seriously, lots of fiddlé makers ended up with lost thumbs and complaints