The word for today is…

churlish (adj) – 1. Having a bad disposition; surly: “as valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear” (Shakespeare).

  1. (Archaic) Of, like, or befitting a churl; boorish or vulgar.
  2. (Archaic) Difficult to work with; intractable. Used as of soil.

Source : The Free Dictionary

Etymology : It is easy to understand how churlish has come to mean “vulgar,” “surly,” and “intractable”—if you know your English history. In Anglo-Saxon England, a churl, or ceorl, was a freeman of the lowest rank who owned and cultivated a small farm. He had certain rights and had upward mobility to rise to the rank of thane. After the Norman Conquest, however, many churls became serfs, a change in status that meant losing not just social mobility but geographical mobility as well. The lowest rungs of a social system often serve as inspiration for a language’s pejoratives, and churl eventually came to be used as a term for a rude, ill-bred person.

Peter is a fourth-generation New Zealander, with his mother's and father's folks having arrived in New Zealand in the 1870s. He lives in Lower Hutt with his wife, some cats and assorted computers. His...