[Ads-l] "cul-paper" 1652; not in OED

Joel Berson berson at ATT.NET
Sat Oct 31 02:31:47 UTC 2015


"Ich sitze in dem kleinsten Zimmer in meinem Hause. Ich habe Ihre Kritik vor mir. Im nächsten Augenblick wird sie hinter mir sein!"

But earlier, from a different writer:

"Pray let me not trouble your weake brains with a relation of a Gentleman and Scholars, censure upon your Book, who perusing some passages in it in a Booksellers shop, asked whether Culpeper made that obsceane book or no, and being answered he did, replied, truly Culpeper hath made cul-paper, paper fit to wipe ones breech withall."

William Johnson, [letter to] “Friend Culpepr”[sic], page (14).  In _Three ExactPieces of Leonard Phioravant Knight and Doctor in Physick ...” (London: Printed by G.Dawson, 1652 [imprint; 1651 for manuscript]). Johnson, chemist to the Collegeof Physicians of London, was the editor of _Three ExactPieces_.  See Harold J. Cook, _TheDecline of the Old Medical Regime in Stuart London_ (Cornell Univ. Press,1986), pp. 125--126.

"cul-paper" 1652, either compound not in OED or interdates OED2 "cule" n. (the rump)  1543 -- 1825.

Joel

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