"puss" in Icelandic ? Swedish ?

[Jonathan Lighter]

I should have edited for clarity.

Was talking about "puss/ pussy," not "fud."

The uninhibited Scots writers don't write "puss/pussy."

JL

Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Laurence Horn
Subject: Re: "puss" in Icelandic ? Swedish ?
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>This "fud" business suggests that if "puss/ pussy" is an ancient
>survival, and if it came into English via the Danelaw, and if Scots
>writers such as Dunbar, Burns, and "Claudero" were familiar with it,
>then they should have had no misgivings about using it.
>
>But we have no record that they did. (The word's absence from
>Burns's uncensored _Merry Muses_ is especially significant.)

as just noted (I'm going through my "fud" files), it is present--at
least once--in Burns's "Jolly Beggars", with the 'pubic hair' sense


L


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