"Blue balls"

[Wilson Gray]

When I was a freshman in high school, Harry Gleason, the asshole who
sat in front of me, used to use the just-for-the-hell-of-it phrase:

"_Blue-balled_ bastard from Piss-Pot Creek"

This, (9/1950) was the first time that I had heard "blue balls" or any
of its variations, combinations, permutations, or probabilities. The
phrase, in that context or any other, meant nothing to me and
continued to mean nothing till ca.1991. When a (white) friend happened
to use the phrase, "blue balls," for some reason, I finally felt like
asking what it meant. From the explanation, I divined that "blue
balls" was the white term for "lover's nuts." That satisfied me till I
listened to a blues recorded in 1934 by Walter Roland, whoever he was,
of Alabama. This song opens with the verse:

You know, since I lef' Cincinnati
You know I had somethin' on my mind
[...] the head o' my dick
And blue balls in my groin

"Groin" is pronounced as "grin(d)" and, hence, rhymes with "min(d)."
Apparently, this was *a*, if not *the*, usual pronunciation of -oin at
one time, since I've also come across, e.g. "suhline steak" for
"sirloin steak." It may still be used, somewhere or other. You never
know. IME, there's no conversation to speak of, WRT different kinds of
steak and "crouch," i.e. "crotch" (eggcorn?) is the word for "groin."
A Los Angeles oddity: Japanese-American (_sansei_) friends of mine who
spoke the local standard and made no attempt to get linguistically
down with the colored people, nevertheless used "crouch" for "crotch"
and were fully persuaded of its correctness:

S. "... crouch ..."

W. "You mean, 'crotch.' "

S. "What? [Has no idea WTF I'm talking about] Anyway, as I was saying,
... crouch ..."

They didn't spell it "crouch. They just pronounced it that way, just
as I once said "mordn," but wrote "modern."


IAC, this is the first time that I've ever heard "blue balls" used,
except in its literal meaning, by a black person in my life.
Consequently, I would have bet money, heretofore, that the average
black male of whatever age probably had also never heard it. If it
wasn't for the fact that, to paraphrase Dave Chapelle, "I know white
people," I would have no idea what "blue balls in my groin / croutch"
could possibly have meant, back in '34, since it would be brand-new to
me.

BTW, the black Cincinnatians that I know say "Cincinnnata," not
"Cincinnati," as Roland says.

And that reminds me of my grandparents, who used "Missoura." I once
read somewhere that, speaking sociologically, there is a "Northern"
Missouri - Saint Louis, Kansas City, Jefferson City - with final [i] /
[I]., and a "Southern" Missouri - "outstate" - with final [@].

My grandparents never lived anywhere but East Texas, yet their natural
pronunciation of "Missouri" was the "Southern" one. And I would bet
that they never had occasion to say "Missouri" more than fifty times
altogether in their entire lives. How weird is that?

-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.
-----
-Mark Twain

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