"autocoprophogous baboons!"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Algernon Charles Swinburne is the source of OED's lone "autocoprophogous" cite, from 1880.

  But this appears to have been one of Algy's favorite words.

  1871 in A. C. Swinburne _The Yale Edition of the Swinburne Letters 1869-1875_  (New Haven: Yale U. P., 1959) 161: A Malebolgian periodical called the Contemporary Review, conducted by...spiritual nightmen of the autocoprophogous persuasion.

  Then in 1874 Swinburne wrote to Emerson to suggest gently that the latter was the

  1874 A. C. Swinburne, in F. L. Lucas _Style_  (Rpt. N.Y.: Collier Books, 1962) 131 Coryphaus or choragus of his Bulgarian tribe of autocoprophogous baboons.

  After that it gets indelicate.

  JL




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