Pedantic and Proud?

Recently Wellcome Collection, a museum in London, posted a YouTube video showcasing a scold's bridle that they have in their collection, and discussing how scold's bridles were used over the years. This video caught my attention for a few reasons, the first being that material about scold's bridles (one of my fetishes) is kind of rare just by itself. Secondly, the video contained the first photograph I've ever seen of a scold's bridle being used for non-kinky disciplinary purposes. (Like a lot of bygone punishments that were outlawed before the camera was invented, the scold's bridle was still used "in the shadows" in places like prisons and POW camps.)

What still bothers me about the video, though, is that the device shown in the museum's collection looks much more like a German schandmaske than a scold's bridle. Although derived from the scold's bridle, the schandmaske was a substantially different punishment. Not only did most schandmasken not have a gag, but they covered much more of the face to superimpose another image over the wearer's head (usually something animal-like or devil-like), which also served to make it harder to identify the criminal later, whereas most punishments of that era (like the pillory and stocks) were meant to expose the criminal to the public so citizens would know which persons to avoid and distrust.

Since I'm an enthusiast about gags, as well as medieval-era punishments, it's natural that I have a lot of knowledge about these topics, but it brings to mind how pedantic I can be about these things. Especially when it comes to the difference between a stocks and a pillory, this cartoon kind of drives the point home perfectly. I can't count the number of times when I've been at a play party and bristled when another kinkster referred to a pillory as a stocks (or, worse yet, a stockade), and as much as I know that it's not polite to "correct" someone about that (unless they're one of my subs, of course), part of me always wants to go into Teacher Mode and explain the difference.

Looking back at California Bondage Sorority Book One, I can see how I used dialogue to kind of take a jab at people who use the word "stocks" to refer to a pillory. (To be fair, Cece and the other sisters of Epsilon Pi Sigma would be expected to know this difference because of their comprehensive BDSM classes.) I also took a similar swipe at non-kinky people who call ball gags "gag balls," although I've seen other kinksters rankle when someone says that term aloud, so I feel a lot less self-conscious about that. Being seen as a pedant doesn't exactly help you make friends, but maybe I shouldn't fight that label when it comes to knowing the proper terminology for punishment devices. After all, I'm kind of supposed to be an expert on those.