Twats

[Joel S. Berson]

Apparently my email filter (Eudora) knows about twats -- Charlie's
message rated 3 peppers (tops) on its hotness scale.  Unless the
offending word was "nun".

But someone in the censorship hierarchy for "Blazing Saddles" didn't
know squat about twat either.  In a theatre viewing I saw early after
release, Hedley Lamarr called Lili Von Shtupp "you Teutonic
twat".  Nor, I suspect, did the audience; I didn't hear a single gasp
or objection.   I did not hear that in later viewings. (But my later
viewings were all on TV; I don't know what eventuated in theatres.)

Joel

At 4/13/2006 08:36 AM, you wrote:
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
>Subject:      Twats
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>I suppose everybody knows about Browning's "owls and bats,/
>Cowls and twats" (in Pippa Passes)--where the poet
>apparently thought a twat was a (visible) part of a nun's
>regalia.  Those English!
>
>--Charlie
>
>
>
>---- Original message ----
> >Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 23:34:23 -0400
> >From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> >Subject: Re: spaz and Tiger Woods
> >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >
> >---------------------- Information from the mail header ----
>-------------------
> >Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-
>L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> >Subject:      Re: spaz and Tiger Woods
> >------------------------------------------------------------
>-------------------
> >
> >David, is your houseguest familiar with "Fawlty Towers"?
> From time to time,
> >the sign, "Fawlty Towers," would be "anagrammatized," so to
>speak. On one o=
> >f
> >the shows, the anagram read, "Flowery Twats." This was back
>in the '70's,
> >but I'm still trying to recover frrom the shock. ;--)
> >"Spastic" and "cripple" are taboo, but "twat" is
>okay?! "Ssup wit dat?!" as
> >Ali G (or whatever his name is) might ask.
> >
> >-Wilson
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org