Clods and other animals

When I was very young, 'clot' was a term of mild abuse used in classroom and playground. Not particularly common then and now, I would think, extinct.

Then yesterday, in the course of reading reference 1, I was struck by the phrase 'chausettes à clous', literally nailed socks, a bit of derogatory slang for 'policeman' which Simenon uses fairly often. From the far off days when Paris, like London, had hundreds if not thousands of beat policemen walking the streets. In Paris named for their hob nailed boots, while in London we settled for the collective noun 'the plod', another allusion to the beat.

For Simenon the word is not derogatory, more an allusion to the days when you had proper policemen who knew their patch, did their business and had not fallen into the clutches of the suits who dispensed justice from the comfort of their offices. The days when you might not bash suspects about much, but you were allowed, using relays of interrogators, to interrogate them until they dropped.

From where I jumped to 'clodhopper', an English compound derived from 'clod', literally one who hops from clod to clod, a bit of slang for a plough man or boy. Then any kind of agricultural worker, then shortened to 'clod' and applied abusively to members of the outdoor working classes thought stupid or clumsy.

Clod is a very old word, a close relation of 'clot', one meaning of which is the still current clot of blood, but originally clumps or clots of various materials, including earth. We also once had clot-bird for the wheatear and clot-bur for the burdock. 

While Bing turns up beef clod. Snapped above and Wikipedia'd below.

References

Reference 1: Maigret and le Voleur paresseux - Georges Simenon - 1961.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef_clod.