"knock" = "vagina", 1664?

[Jonathan Lighter]

Joel, as far as is known, this is the first American ex. discovered, too late to get into HDAS II, which has no entry on _nock_ (well, there *will* be addenda).

  Except for documented Americanisms, distinctions between the American and British lexicons before 1800 - and perhaps even later - are often moot. One suspects that all slang terms that were truly popular in Britain during that period were also current in America, but finding exx. of them requires the kind of specialist research that you've been doing.

  I'd be most interested in hearing of anything  you may obviously turn up.

  JL




"Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Joel S. Berson"
Subject: Re: "knock" = "vagina", 1664?
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It's American (Massachusetts). How would I determine that it's unique?

Joel

At 8/3/2006 10:42 PM, you wrote:
>The latest OED revisions include this kind of "nock" from
>1611-1680. Is 1664 a unique American ex.?
>
> JL
>
>
>"Douglas G. Wilson" wrote:
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>Sender: American Dialect Society
>Poster: "Douglas G. Wilson"
>Subject: Re: "knock" = "vagina", 1664?
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>
> >I do not see "knock" = "vagina" in OED2. What does one make of: this
> >from 1664?
> >
> >And thus she argues of the case:
> >My knock doth piteously itch ....
>
>Maybe = "nock" in the sense "notch"/"cleft".
>
>-- Doug Wilson
>
>
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