# How did Robert Falcon Scott bundle up? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 8, 2014, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-robert-falcon-scott-bundle-up/678198 "2014-01-08T00:05:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2014, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-robert-falcon-scott-bundle-up/678198/21 "2014-01-10T15:43:56Z")
A tuck shop was a small business run by a servant ( usually ) in an English Public School ( _aka_ expensive private school ) where sweets and delicacies were sold at no discounted price to the children. Not to be confused with a Truck Shop where employers, having paid their workers script instead of money would only redeem that script for goods they sold to those workers. At the opposite of discounted. _Nosh_ was also used for food in public school vocabulary. _Tuck_ itself is not a synonym for food, but _Tucker_ is in Australasia. As distinct from the American _Tuckered Out_, for the state of tired. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2014, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-robert-falcon-scott-bundle-up/678198/22 "2014-01-10T17:00:37Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > Not to be confused with a Truck Shop where employers, having paid their workers script instead of money would only redeem that script for goods they sold to those workers. Not “script,” but “[scrip](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=scrip+definition).” ---
**Author:** ![Teacake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Teacake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Teacake)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2014, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-robert-falcon-scott-bundle-up/678198/23 "2014-01-11T18:28:28Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > _Tuck_ itself is not a synonym for food, but _Tucker_ is in Australasia. As distinct from the American _Tuckered Out_, for the state of tired. Tuck does mean food, in the specific context to which you referred of schools. When I went away to school, I took with me a tuck box (like a small trunk) in which I kept my tuck - sweets, biscuits, sometimes fruit, that sort of thing. The word “tuck” wouldn’t, though, be used as a general synonym for food, or in any other context. The only other food-related use I can think of is if you wanted someone to start eating/eat more rapidly or enthusiastically, in which case you would invite them to “tuck in”. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-robert-falcon-scott-bundle-up/678198/24 "2014-01-12T01:32:47Z")
I had a tuck box too ! ( Actually I had two. ) Mind you it was only a prep school for a brief period. I kept Airfix figures in mine. ---
**Author:** ![Kiwi\_Fruit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kiwi_fruit/32/12_2.png) [@Kiwi\_Fruit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kiwi_Fruit)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-robert-falcon-scott-bundle-up/678198/25 "2014-01-12T23:25:33Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > …-Scott refused Nansen’s advice that they bring high fat/high protein rations (like pemmican); instead they brought carb-based dry food (which took precious fuel to heat up). … This isn’t true. Scott’s food was famous for his “hoosh”, the high fat pemmican, _mixed_ with dry biscuits to make a kind of stew. It takes fuel to heat the pemmican too. It was in tin cans and looked rather like brownish-grey dripping. It had to be heated to get out of the can otherwise it was just a block of solid fat. I saw a can that was removed from a cache at Butter Point that became exposed by receding ice cover in the mid 80’s. A most unappetising looking food if you normally eat American or NZ style meals. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-robert-falcon-scott-bundle-up/678198/26 "2014-01-12T23:47:45Z")
Why not goose down? ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2014, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-robert-falcon-scott-bundle-up/678198/27 "2014-01-13T00:34:30Z")
See post 9. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2014, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-robert-falcon-scott-bundle-up/678198/28 "2014-01-13T16:03:38Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > The failure to bring correct rations was also key-Scott refused Nansen’s advice that they bring high fat/high protein rations (like pemmican); instead they brought carb-based dry food (which took precious fuel to heat up). The food was also deficient in Vitamin C-which caused many of his men to develop scurvy (which should never have happened-the cause of scurvy was well known by 1900). Well, evidently Scott really shouldn’t be blamed for the scurvy: [Scott And Scurvy (Idle Words)](http://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm) Fascinating story about how the cure was found and then lost again. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2014, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-robert-falcon-scott-bundle-up/678198/29 "2014-01-13T16:38:56Z")
however his mom told him to. clean underwear too. ---
**Author:** ![Gunslinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gunslinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gunslinger)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2014, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-robert-falcon-scott-bundle-up/678198/30 "2014-01-20T07:14:07Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > Well, evidently Scott really shouldn’t be blamed for the scurvy: [Scott And Scurvy (Idle Words)](http://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm) > Fascinating story about how the cure was found and then lost again. Makes me wonder if, 50 years hence, some unexplained modern ailment like fibromyalgia or whatever will turn out to be something similarly simple and really-obvious-in-retrospect. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-robert-falcon-scott-bundle-up/678198/31 "2014-01-24T02:26:39Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > If that is the case, then why did the team have to move slowly (in the mornings), because their clothes had frozen stiff? Their clothing was definitely substandard and a major factor in their demise. I don’t know, but if it’s not the case that wool is suited to the antarctic then why do people who have actually wintered there mention bringing it? [link](http://www.bigdeadplace.com/ask-an-antarctican-2/) Maybe Scott’s crew were not using it for the appropriate layer or whatever, I don’t know much about his expedition. But the blanket statement that wool in general is a bad material for use in Antarctica is false. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-robert-falcon-scott-bundle-up/678198.md?page=1)