Earpicker

Back in August I had occasion to notice, at reference 1, the chap called Earwicker invented by James Joyce.

While today I have been reading at reference 2 all about Chinese earpickers, in whom Sir Hans Sloane took some interest in the late 17th century, to the point where some of his contemporaries went to the bother of writing offensive satires about same. It seems that the Chinese of that time took the art of ear picking to heights not known before or since.

Joyce was a very well read chap, so I wonder whether he had come across these pickers too, and fed them into his famous invention. After all, a shift of just one letter takes us from one to the other.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/earwig-redux.html.

Reference 2: Collecting the world - James Delbourgo - 2017.