commess

Good-natured trouble; mischief; hanky-panky or high jinks.

Romance, tragedy, a simply sweet love story, shame and scandal in the family, bacchanal, commess and sex at its best have been depicted in thousands of romance novels for generations.

"The alternative would have been to let the country believe that there were all kinds of shady, nefarious bits of commess going on inside here," he said.

Gossip about local scandals.

Even the recognition that commess is a pervasive feature of village life does not affect the judgment that it is alien to respectability, to mainstream morality and behavioral propriety. Again villagers are faced with a contradiction between needing to act out their disapproval of deviant sexual activity and their belief that commess is antithetical to good manners and a commitment to mainstream moral and behavioral norms.

Not only is commess judged in this way, but it is related in the minds of Vincentians with such other traditional devices as joking ('ragging', 'making mock'), arguing ('making boderation', 'giving vextation') and ceremonial performances of a more ritualised sort. In other words, Vincentians seem to say that there is an 'art' in gossip just as there is in making a song or speech, or conducting an argument, and they judge the practice of commess accordingly.