"Cock"

[Baker, John]

        Do we know if "cock" here means the vulva or vagina, as opposed
to masculine or feminine genitalia generally?


John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Jonathan Lighter
Sent: Monday, August 15, 2011 9:50 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "Cock"

Here is an  unquestionable English ex., from a centuries-old bawdy song
sung
in 1978 by Danny Brazil, a Traveller in Gloucestershire. Brazil seems to
have been born around 1910. He is described as "illiterate." He learned
many
songs from his father:

"She run downstairs for to piddle in the pot.
Up jumped the little crabfish and caught her by the cock."

http://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/brazils.htm#fam

I've seen dozens of variant texts of this song, dating back to Bishop
Percy's ms.,  but this is the only one that has this rhyme. Presumably
the
couplet originated in the nineteenth century.

JL

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