"gun play"?

Robin Hamilton robin.hamilton2 at BTINTERNET.COM
Thu Dec 31 21:48:36 UTC 2009


> @Larry:
>
> So, "horseplay" has been used as a euphemism for "arseplay" since at
> least the 16th c. Amazing.
>
> -Wilson

As in, "Stop arsing around!" which I imagine is still current, and has to
reflect UK rather than US English, since it makes no sense when couched as
"Stop assing around."

I am reminded, for whatever reason, of the (now Sir) David Frost's Younger
Brother Joke, current in the sixties, which emerged obliquely from TWTWTW.

{The punch-line of which wasn't, but perhaps should have been, "fribble off,
Rudolph!"}

Robin Hamilton

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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