dirty words in dictionaries revisted

[Baker, John]

        No, I mean that they would have gotten the pun, even though "pee" did not yet mean urinate.

John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
Of Wilson Gray
Sent: Friday, December 17, 2004 11:23 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: dirty words in dictionaries revisted


On Dec 17, 2004, at 11:08 AM, Baker, John wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Baker, John" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM>
> Subject:      Re: dirty words in dict              ionaries revisted
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
>         Might "P's" have been understood by an Elizabethan audience as
> simply "piss," and not "pees"?
>
> John Baker
>

In other words, such an audience wouldn't have gotten the pun?

-Wilson Gray