"gun play"?

[Wilson Gray]

Of course it does! Else, why the euphemism?

-Wilson, arsing about

On Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 9:31 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "gun play"?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> It doesn't look like "horseplay" was a euphemism for anything in 1589.
> The OED offers another sense from about the same time (1599, but given
> sequential priority for some reason),
> "Play in which a horse is used or takes part; theatrical horsemanship."
>
> I've long assumed that the original reference was to the play of
> high-spirited colts. (It may be only my imagination, however.)
>
> Does _*arseplay_ even exist?
>
> JL
>
> On Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 4:48 PM, Robin Hamilton <
> robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com> wrote:
>
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>> Poster:       Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at BTINTERNET.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: "gun play"?
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> > @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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> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
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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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