Melons

[Jonathan Lighter]

If you think there might be "dual meaning" there, I recommend Christina
Rosetti's "Goblin Market" (1859-62)

http://www.loudlit.org/audio/goblin/pages/01_01_goblin.htm

Go wild!

JL


On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 9:59 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Melons
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I don't want to suggest that this is a clear example of "use" of melons
> in the requisite sense, but there is more going on in Roden Noel's poem
> Beatrice than merely literal text. (The Collected Poems of Roden Noel,
> London, 1902, p. 27--GoogleBooks copy from Indiana) It certainly would
> not qualify for OED citation, but it's worth noting nonetheless.
>
> > >
> Ah! How she envied yon brown melon-girl
> Emerging from the cork-grove up the steps
> Of rock, her apron full of luscious fruit,
> Chiding the dark-eyed peasant-boy,
> Yet laughingly, for winding his strong arm
> About her waste, endangering the melons.
> > >
>
> It's possible that I am simply reading this through the now familiar
> euphemism that might not have been available to Noel, but, it seems,
> there may well be dual meaning here. ;-)
>
> Perhaps I would have been less certain of this had the next couple of
> line not possessed a similar duality. And even if it is not the original
> intent, it is certainly a good demonstration how temporal euphemisms and
> metaphors can corrupt literary interpretations.
>
>    VS-)
>
>
> Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
> > On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 11:01:48AM -0800, David Bowie wrote:
> >
> >> A student here is trying to figure out how far back "melons" for female
> >> breasts goes. The OED has 1957 as the earliest use for that sense, but
> >> he thinks he may have found something that plays on that sense from
> >> 1862--but only maybe. Is there any other evidence that the term was used
> >> that way that early?
> >>
> >
> > Uh, if there were, we'd put it in. This is in the revised range....
> >
> > Jesse Sheidlower
> > OED
> >
> >
>
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