"Blue balls"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 10:41 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>
> Why would you want to consider the possibility that "blue balls" might
> have something to do with a social disease in this particular case,
> Ben? Scientific curiosity or unconscious racism? That you should raise
> that particular question is in the context of my post seems strange.
>
> BTW, what does "venereal buboes" mean? I realize that I could probably
> Wikipedia the term. But, since you obviously have already studied up
> on them, to the extent of wondering a black man might one have sung
> about them, you can just tell me what they are and save me the
> trouble.

Wilson, all I did was copy the alternate definitions from HDAS. This is hardly
my area of expertise. Since you suggested that the one (now prevailing) sense
seemed largely unknown among BE speakers of an earlier era, I thought it was
worth mentioning that HDAS gives the other definitions. I was making no
assumptions about the social distribution of usage among the three HDAS senses,
and was also making no assumptions about what Walter Roland might have been
singing about. I thought the HDAS information could potentially be useful to
you and certainly meant no offense. My humblest apologies if my reply was in
any way out of line.


--Ben

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