"puss" in Icelandic ? Swedish ?

[Jonathan Lighter]

If it's truly cognate, then it's an incredible survival from Old English, no ?

JL

"Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Douglas G. Wilson"
Subject: Re: "puss" in Icelandic ? Swedish ?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>Interestingly enough, Vance Randolph encountered a dial. term "fud" for
>the female genitals, in the Ozarks between 1920 and 1954. It's hard to
>know if that's an incredible survival from Old English - or if there was
>some kind of weird German dial. survival in southwestern Missouri /
>northwestern Arkansas.

Just a Scotticism or so, I suppose.

>From the SND: "fud" (n1): sense 3: "The female pubes or pudendum" [example
from 1835].

Presumably cognate with German "fut", etc.

-- Doug Wilson


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