jump = copulate with?

[Page Stephens]

A friend of mine and his wife once surreptitiously jumped over a sword
three times during their wedding ceremony on the ground that it was an old
celtic or as I recall  more specifically a Welsh custom.

Obviously a revival of an old purported custom I have never seen this done
before or since, and since it was the second marriage for each of them and
they are still married I guess it worked.

Since they had been living together and jumping each others bones for many
months I don't see any connection between the term jump at least in their
minds.

Neither of them told anyone except their closest friends what they had done
so that no one who might have been offended by this pagan part of the
wedding ceremony would be offended.

Page Stephens

> [Original Message]
> From: sagehen <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM>
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Date: 11/18/2005 11:15:49 AM
> Subject: Re: jump = copulate with?
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       sagehen <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM>
> Subject:      Re: jump = copulate with?
>
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>
> James A.  Landau writes:
>
> >This suggestion sounds doubtful to me:  there seems to be an ancient
custom
> >of a couple performing their wedding by jumping over an object  together.
> >Then, if "to jump" means "to wed", further sexual meanings are  not
> >impossible.
> ~~~~~~~~~
> I have a faint forty-year-old memory of a newspaper photo of  Jackie
> Kennedy & Aristotle Onassis jumping over something in the course of their
> wedding:  Eastern Rite service, perhaps?
> A. Murie