"Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy

[Dennis R. Preston]

Please note that in the world's languages, eggs overwhelms nuts 135
to 1 (roughly) for balls, uh, I mean testicles.

dInIs


>At 2:25 PM -0500 11/7/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
>>>what's the motivation for "brains" 'scrotum'?  is it based on the
>>>expression "have balls for brains" '[of a man] think with one's
>>>genitals'?  or on a perceived physical similarity between a testicle
>>>and a brain?  or what?
>>
>>It seems to me highly probable that originally the human scrotum itself
>>(not the testicle) is being likened to a human brain in general external
>>appearance. Both scrotum and brain are (approximately) symmetrically
>>bilobate (with two hemiscrota [each containing a testis] versus two
>>cerebral hemispheres) and corrugated (from dartos muscle contractions
>>versus cortical gyri and sulci). The other member of the set is the walnut,
>>maybe.
>>
>>-- Doug Wilson
>
>Interestingly, transitivity doesn't work here:
>
>(kick someone in the) nuts = balls [I have indeed always assumed walnuts here]
>balls/scrotum = brain (as we've seen), but
>nuts =/= brain.
>Unless when we say someone is nuts we're really saying their brain
>has reverted to its primitive walnuttian state.
>
>larry


--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages
A-740 Wells Hall
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824
Phone: (517) 432-3099
Fax: (517) 432-2736
preston at msu.edu