I am not going to add on any more comments to the last post I reblogged, which is already going all over the place with a vague theme of naughty language in the Georgian era—but @acrossthewavesoftime brought up 'fribble' as a word for an even more effeminate type of fop, after the character in David Garrick's 1747 farce, Miss in Her Teens.
And I immediately thought—FRIBBLE? THE ROLE PLAYED BY CAPTAIN WILLIAM EDWARD PARRY HIMSELF in his own Royal Arctic Theatre??!
The first performance, a work by Garrick called Miss in Her Teens, was cheered loudly. It was widely agreed that Parry sustained the role of Fribble to perfection. Parry played down his triumph bashfully, 'considering that an example of cheerfulness ... was not the least part of my duty'
— Fergus Fleming, Barrow's Boys
See also: Clements Markham's The Arctic Navy List with complete list of Parry's theatrical roles.
