Unfamiliar slang term

[Jonathon Green]

Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Unfamiliar slang term
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Fri, Feb 29, 2008 at 10:11:09AM -0500, Wilson Gray wrote:
>
>> The quote is the set-up to the punchline of a joke. The word's meaning
>> is clear. The question is whether anyone has ever come across the term
>> elsewhere. The situation entails a wronged husband giving directions
>> to a hit-man:
>>
>> "I want you to shoot my cheating wife in the head. The guy, I want him
>> alive, but
>> can you shoot his _todger_ off?"
>>
>
> This is extremely common in British English. OED has an entry with a
> first cite of 1986.
>
> Jesse Sheidlower
> OED
>
>
>
Indeed. And as Monty Python put it in 1983:in their song 'The Meaning of
Life': It’s swell to have a Stiffy, / it’s divine to have a Dick, / from
the tinyest little Tadger, / to the world’s greatest Prick.

Tadger/todger have always been interchangeable. The term seems to have
started in northern dialect then moved south through the UK. However the
EDD only offers, at tadger, 'the centre marble in a game of marbles'.
One sees the physical centrality of the penis, but maybe the verb tadge,
'to stitch lightly together', a term used of a newly-married couple, and
of a piece with other terms that reflect the 'sewing/stitching' motiong
of intercourse, may be more to the point.

JG

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