Some (Irish?) lingo

[Wilson Gray]

Is _kitchen stuff_ a double-entendre?

-Wilson

On Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 6:40 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Some (Irish?) lingo
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>
> 1)  hoop-la (int.) OED dates this from 1870, with one other
> 19th-century quotation (1877).  And the following is a variant spelling.
>
> Chums {London], 1892 Sept. 14, p. 9.
>
> "The Wandering Pig: or, The Strange Tale from Limerick."
> [An illustrated tale (see my previous message).]
> [Caption to the illustration of the pig butting the nearly supine
> Irishman in the stomach with its head:]
> "Whoop-la!"
>
> 2)   sky farmer; two senses in the OED, dating from 1753.  The
> following quotation doesn't seem to precisely fit any of the 6
> quotations currently in the on-line OED, nor are any of those 6 from
> the 19th century.
>
> John Bull [London], 1824 October 18, p. 343.
>
> The Limerick Chronicle of Oct. 9, states, that a set of depredators,
> under the name of brokers, or sky farmers, offer continued violence
> to the country people who come to market with their corn.
>
> [I assume the violence offered is financial.]
>
> 3)  kitchen-stuff.  OED 2.b. fig., from 1637 through 1754.
>
> The Satirist, and the Censor of the Time [London], 1834 March 2m p. 67.
>
> A Limerick paper asserts that a learned (Irish) judge has "just led
> to the hymeneal altar his aged cook." For our parts we have few
> pretensions to learning, neither can we plead guilty to a relish for
> 'kitchen stuff."
>
> [There are a few more double-entendres in the remainder of this piece.]
>
> Joel
>
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--
-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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