Keep and mistress

There has been a high-profile alimony case in India recently (which was also reported on the BBC website), where two senior Supreme Court judges referred to a man's mistress as a keep. A senior female lawyer strongly objected to the term keep, saying she found it personally offensive, and regarded the judge's words as being in extremely poor taste (see this Times of India article).

 

The specific 'mistress' meaning of the noun keep is not in the OED; the nearest definition is one that Edmund Spenser used, namely "that which is kept; a charge". However, the phrase 'kept woman' is not uncommon, and is often used humorously these days, as, indeed, is kept man. The OED also has the definition "one who keeps a mistress" at the headword keeper, which it describes as obsolete and it has the entry keeperess, one of whose meanings is "a woman who keeps a man". Similarly, at 'keeping' one of the senses is "the maintaining of a mistress or lover".

 

There are dozens of words in the OED which are synonyms of the word 'mistress', or which have been at some time - with the 17th century being the heyday for such vocabulary. Here are some: buttered bun, convenient, doxy, fancy-woman, gimmer, jilt, jug, kittock, leveret, liberty-wife, lie-by, Lindabrides, minion, minx, mule, natural, night piece, nobsy, peculiar, pinnace, pop, poplolly, pug, pure, sooterkin, special, tackle, underput and wanton.

Comments

[Robert]

Am I right in inferring that you've never heard 'keep' being used for a mistress before. I certainly haven't.

One can see how the word might have come to mean this within a group of English speakers. That is, I can't detect any specifically Indian influence at work here, But then I don't know much about it. 'Keep' could be a translation from an Indian language but I'm guessing not.

Do you think the OED covers Indian usage sufficiently? Is there an English Dictionary produced in India? I've never come across one.

[Virtual Linguist]

Thank you for your comment, Robert. Yes, you're right; I had never heard keep being used to mean mistress before. The word seems to have caused a stir in India, too, so perhaps it's unusual there as well. I think it was probably adapted from the English verb to keep.

I don't know a lot about Indian English, but I've just had a look on Amazon, OUP etc and can't find any dictionaries. I also searched on the Crossword Unclued blog http://www.crosswordunclued.com/ to see if Shuchi, who is an Indian setter and solver of crosswords, mentions any local dictionaries, but she doesn't.

The only dictionary of Indian English I know of is the wonderful 19th century Hobson-Jobson, which I occasionally mention on this blog eg here http://virtuallinguist.typepad.com/the_virtual_linguist/2008/10/chuckerbutty.html#tp

[Robert]

Thank you so much for looking, and for putting me on to Hobson-Jobson. I’ve been immersed in it for the last half-hour on Google Books.

I’ve also been doing a little digging of my own and found this in The Telegraph (India) 25 Oct 2010:

‘The additional solicitor general articulated the process of the court's addition to vocabulary: "keep" is the simple translation of an ugly Hindi word. And the court provided its own gloss - by suggesting "concubine" as substitute for "keep".’ (http://www.telegraphindia.com/1101025/jsp/opinion/story_13094895.jsp)

The same paper used ‘keep’ in this sense two years ago (22 Feb 2008) in a report about controversy over the film ‘Jodhaa Akbar’ when it quoted a protester saying, ‘The film hurts our sentiments as it presents a Rajput princess like a keep under the Mughal ruler.’

[Virtual Linguist]

And thank you for your research, Robert. It looks like 'keep' is an example of a Hobson-Jobsonism itself. I must say, I don't think much of the word 'concubine' either, although it sounds more quaint to my ears than offensive.

I've just looked through my old posts for anything else on Indian English and I mention zamindar on this post on sari-rippers, which Shuchi gives more information on in her comment
http://virtuallinguist.typepad.com/the_virtual_linguist/2009/12/sari-and-bodicerippers.html#tp

[Robert]

Thank you.
Yes, a lot of Indian English perhaps sounds quaint to our ears.

[Shuchi]

Hi Susan,

A Google search brought me here today. Don't know how I missed this post, I would have surely commented had I seen it before.

There are no Indian English dictionaries that I know of (will have a look at Hobson-Jobson next, it sounds fascinating from your description). Our standard crossword reference is British dictionaries.

I hear the word 'keep' used by people of an earlier generation - when they speak Hindi! As you've rightly figured, this is a translation of a Hindi word considered too crude to be said out loud. I haven't come across Indians of my age or younger using words like 'keep' or 'concubine', they are more likely to say "she's having an affair".

This post made me think of other English words that have crept into Hindi though their local equivalents exist. I guess this has happened because the Hindi equivalents are difficult to pronounce or relate to traditionally taboo topics. The Hindi word for 'kiss' for example is well-known but the English word gets used by default in Hindi conversations.

[Virtual Linguist]

Thanks for the info, Shuchi. I'd be interested to hear what you think of Hobson-Jobson. I think it's delightfully quaint - you might think differently as you will approach it from another side.

I suppose it's common in all countries where so many people speak English as a second or official language that English words slip into the traditional language. I recently saw a Shakespeare play at the Globe performed in Yoruba by a Nigerian theatre company. I read in an article about the production that it was quite difficult to find actors who could handle the traditional Yoruba - these days a conversation between Yoruba speakers will be peppered with English words.