"to ring changes", sexual, 1736

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Tue Apr 6 00:03:52 UTC 2010


At 4/5/2010 11:31 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>I mean I haven't encountered it ever except in its S.E. senses. I
>can imagine it *applied* to sexual activities, but I know I've never seen it
>or heard it used in the kind of absolute, unelaborated construction quoted.
>
>Whether it was a recognized idiom in a sexual sense is unclear.

Do you-all think it was used in an absolute sexual construction in my
newspaper item?  Do you-all think it was recognized as such by the
newspaper's readers?

Joel

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