Unnoticed sense of "Pope"

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Mon Sep 24 18:52:36 UTC 2007


At 10:39 AM -0700 9/24/07, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>1724 _Laugh and Be Fat_  (London: A.W.) 89: [H]e found that she had
>burned his _Pope_...and that instead of a _Maiden-head_, she had
>given him for his five Guineas, a confounded _Clap_.
>
>   Cf. "beat the bishop" in HDAS.
>
Interesting.  Farmer & Henley, 175 years later, only has 'a term of
contempt' for _pope_.  There's a term of "venery" _poperine-pear_
'the penis', with a cite from "Romeo and Juliet" II.ii, but I'm not
sure what the derivation is.  No entry for _poperine_ in the OED.

LH

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