dirty words in dict ionaries revisted

[Jonathan Lighter]

" 'N' " her T's !  " 'N'  her T's !   Get it ?  Bill Shakespeare, a wildman or what ?!  And is "great P's" a coincidence?

(Maybe. This would be the earliest known example of "pee.")

JL

Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Laurence Horn
Subject: Re: dirty words in dict ionaries revisted
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>And of course (maybe this was mentioned earlier?) the reference to
>"her C's, her U's, her N's her T's, from whence cometh her big P's"
>(inexact quote) in
>Shakespeare's 12th NIGHT would have been published--and of course
>revered--throughout the 19th Century in the USA and througout the world.
>

The more exact line is a bit less explicit:

MALVOLIO
By my life, this is my lady's hand these be her very C's, her U's and
her T's and thus makes she her great P's. It is, in contempt of
question, her hand.

No N's in sight; perhaps left to the reader/audience to insert ad libitum.

Larry

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