Etymological Scholarship on C-Word

[Michael Adams]

 If there's actually Middle English evidence outside of London I want to hunt it down, so if you ever find out how the BBC folks know what they know, I'd be glad to know of it, too. More early evidence of the c-word would be helpful, to say the least!

 Michael

 -----Original Message-----
 From: slang at ABECEDARY.NET
 To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
 Sent: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 5:12 PM
 Subject: Re: Etymological Scholarship on C-Word

  Michael Adams wrote:
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 > Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
 > Poster: Michael Adams <madams1448 at AOL.COM>
 > Subject: Re: Etymological Scholarship on C-Word
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 >
 > Thanks for pointing to Burford's books, Jonathon -- MED did not have any evidence of such a street in York, and if Burford has, it's quite important. Of course, the MED's C fascicles were published in the 1950s or early 60's, so material may well have surfaced since then.
 >
 >
 Michael,

 I don't want to mislead you: Burford is (I would now imagine _was_) a
 scholar of London and his Gropecuntlane material is based on his
 researches in Clerkenwell (the 'suburb' immediately adjacent to the then
 City wall and where brothels were permitted (he also deals with
 Southwark, south of the Thames, a similarly permissive zone.) The
 York/Oxon info was passed to me recently by an interviewer from the BBC
 who, believe it or not, are putting together a TV program on _cunt_ and
 requested my opinions thereupon. A fellow interviewee had told them of
 the two streets outside London of which I had hitherto been quite
 unaware. I would be more than happy to check out _their_ resources after
 the weekend.

 JG

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