BULLOCKS - euph/typo/LA pron.?

[Jonathan Lighter]

If BrE "Bollocks !" is becoming established in AmE, I suspect that few nonliterary Americans associate it with a testicular origin.

One might cf. "poppycock," app. < Dutch for "dried-up dung," now rare in U.S. spoken English but otherwise often thought of as old-frashioned, therefore stuffy, and therefore virtually SE.

Its open appearance in 19th C. sources shows that virtually no one was aware of its putative origin.

JL

John McChesney-Young <panis at PACBELL.NET> wrote:
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Subject: Re: BULLOCKS - euph/typo/LA pron.?
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Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> "Ballocks" (often spelled "bollocks" these days) is so atypical of general American speech that there is no "LA pronunciation." Nor I think, would any American be likely to euphemize it with another word ("bullock") that barely exists here.

After reading the above and wholeheartedly (if only native-speakerishly)
agreeing with the statement, I was astonished to read the following in
the latest K Chronicles cartoon:

http://www.buzzle.com/showImage.asp?image=2603

"It *looks* like Star Wars..

"It *sounds* like Star Wars..

"But it's *pure bollocks*."

Keith Knight lives in San Francisco (or thereabouts) and in the year or
so I've been reading his comic regularly I hadn't ever before noticed a
suggestion of British origin.

Maybe he'd just been listening to the Sex Pistols? On whose connection
to the word note:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Mind_the_Bollocks%2C_Here%27s_the_Sex_Pistols

The album's release was met by a hail of controversy, and an attempt was
made to prosecute a record shop in Manchester for displaying the
'obscene' cover in their window. However the case was overturned when
defending QC Sir John Mortimer produced expert witnesses who were able
to prove that the word "bollocks" was a legitimate old English term
originally used to refer to a priest, and that in this context it meant
'nonsense'.

(end quote)

Of course, Wikipedia isn't to be trusted implicitly, but the story
sounds familiar.

John
--


*** John McChesney-Young ** panis~at~pacbell.net ** Berkeley,
California, U.S.A. ***

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