slob

   This word is said to have an Irish origin, referring to soft mud on the sea-shore, and specifically, to a large soft worm used in angling. From the latter it seems to have been applied, affectionately, to a fat and untidy child, then to any lazy, careless person.

   In modern times it collocates most frequently with the word ‘fat’, as in Garson Kanin’s Moviola, where ‘Put me down, you fat slob’ is supposedly addressed to the American film actor Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle.

   In The Business of Loving, by Godfrey Smith, ‘sweet slob’ is used as an intimate endearment. ‘You old slob’ occurs in the same novel, used in a friendly way. It is said that Truman Capote remarked that he liked Marilyn Monroe because she was such a ‘nice slob’. The word offended her, causing her to slap his face and pour a bottle of champagne over his head, but before her death the actress was indeed living in an untidy manner. ‘Oh, get away you - you slob!’ says an American girl to a man described as the ‘neighbourhood derelict’ in Waterfront, by Budd Schulberg.