Use Itch-X...

[Laurence Horn]

On Jun 2, 2014, at 5:24 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> 18th C. VD?

Good one.  I've always wondered what sort of fun-house mirrors (or rulers) those ancestors of ours were using when they used the term with reference to their "virile member" [OED, s.v. "yard", 11].  Those mirrors have evidently been around for a while, given the cites back to 1379.  Some colorful cites there, including:

1683   A. Snape Anat. Horse (1686) iii. v. 114   It [sc. the pineal gland] is also called the Yard or Prick of the Brain..because it resembleth a Man's Yard.
1693   A. Wood Life & Times (1894) III. 420   A monstrous child..It hath three yards and he makes use of them all at once.

All we'd need is three such monstrous children, and we'd have the whole…well, you know.

LH
>
>
> On Mon, Jun 2, 2014 at 3:32 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Use Itch-X...
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>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> against _yard rash_, whatever that is.
>>
>> Only 2350 raw hits.
>>
>> --
>> -Wilson
>> -----
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>> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>> -Mark Twain
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