scab

   There are many examples of scab used as a vocative in When the Boat Comes In, by James Mitchell. Union members use the term to those who are crossing a picket line and breaking a strike. This is the normal modern use of the word in both Britain and the USA, and has been so since the beginning of the nineteenth century.

   The word had long existed, however, as a general term of abuse for a man who was disliked. The reference was to a skin disease such as scabies, or to the crust which forms over an open skinwound.

   Shakespeare puns in Much Ado About Nothing (3:iii): ‘Here, man, I am at thy elbow.’ ‘Mass, and my elbow itch’d; I thought there would be a scab follow.’ He also uses ‘scab’ vocatively in Twelfth Night (2:v), when Sir Toby Belch says to Malvolio: ‘Out, scab!’ This general sense of ‘scab’ continued until at least the end of the nineteenth century. In Kipling’s Stalky and Co. (1899) there is a reference to ‘beastly scabs’, referring to unpopular boys.

   Modern American use of the term occurs in The River, by Steven Bauer: ‘Somehow the trucks kept moving, though the union men flung themselves on the truck’s hood and were crawling to cover the windshield, block the driver’s view. They were screaming now scabs, scabs, scabs - and hurling obscenities with the bricks.’ ‘Scab sonofabitch’ also occurs in this novel.