"merkin" 1682

[Wilson Gray]

Well chosen, say I!

-Wilson

On 1/17/08, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "merkin" 1682
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 7:44 PM -0500 1/17/08, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> >But the unlucky Dog of a Carver sent them back again two chopping
> >Girles with Merkins exposed. This enraged the Justice more, and the
> >Sign was summoned before the wise Court, where they gravely
> >determined (to keep the Girles from blushing) they should have Roses
> >clapt upon their Merkins; which is the original of our new Proverb,
> >Under the Rose a Merkin.
>
> whence our national flower, the Amerkin beauty rose.
>
> LH
>
> >
> >merkin sense 1.a = female pudendum.
> >
> >J.W.  A Letter from New-England Concerning their Customs, Manners,
> >and Religion. [etc.]  London: Printed for Randolph Taylor near
> >Stationers Hall, 1682.  Page 9.  [Accessible via EEBO.]
> >
> >The proverb is in, and only in, Whiting, "Early American Proverbs and
> >Proverbial Phrases", p. 372; and Miller, "The New England Mind: From
> >Colony to Province", p. 139 [according to Google Web, Books, and
> >Scholar].  In ADS-L archives, no mention of "merkin and 1682".
> >
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--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
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                                              -Sam'l Clemens

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