"Cock," again

[Joel S. Berson]

I trust this article uses the illustration of the
publican erected out of his own implements.

Joel

At 7/7/2008 04:35 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
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>Transactions of the Philological Society
>Volume 106 Issue 1, Pages 71 - 91
>Published Online: 6 Feb 2008
>Journal compilation (c) 2008 The Philological Society
>Get Sample Copy
>
>Published on behalf of the Philological Society
>
>Contribution to the study of a euphemism in the intimate lexis of
>Slavonic and Germanic languages
>
>Brian Cooper
>Department of Slavonic Studies, University of Cambridge
>Correspondence to Department of Slavonic Studies
>University of Cambridge
>Sidgwick Avenue
>Cambridge CB3 9DA
>Email: bfc20 at cam.ac.uk
>
>ABSTRACT
>
>This paper studies the metaphorical origin of a well-known, vulgar
>euphemistic name for the penis, especially in Germanic (e.g. English
>cock and German hahn) and Slavonic (e.g. words with the stems
>pet-/pit-, kur- and kog-/koh-/kok-), but also in some other languages.
>Although it can be surmised that the vulgar sense of these words in
>some languages may have arisen from the sense '(stop)cock', in view of
>the urinary function of the penis, this view seems inaccurate not only
>in the Slavonic but also in the Germanic languages. Judging by the
>material presented, it is much more probable that the reasons
>underlying the metaphor hahn/cock/petux'rooster' >
>hahn/cock/petux'penis' are linked, first and foremost, with the
>ancient association of the rooster with male characteristics,
>primarily of the procreative type. It is from this metaphor that the
>sense Hahn/cock/petux'spigot' arises (the penis is envisaged as a
>tap). It is possible that this same metaphor gave rise to the concept
>Hahn/cock/kurok'hammer of a firearm' (the cocking piece and the penis
>can stick up like the neck and head of a crowing cock).
>­­­­­­­­­
>
>-Wilson
>--
>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.
>-----
>  -Sam'l Clemens
>
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