"get ones ashes hauled", and sweeping ones (or someones) chimney
Laurence Horn
laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Mon Jul 19 19:31:34 UTC 2010
At 2:19 PM -0400 7/19/10, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>Freud to Jung, Nov. 21, 1909:
>
>"It has also been explained to me why a chimney sweep is regarded as a good
>omen: chimney sweeping is an action symbolic of coitus."
I'm wondering who sat Sigmund Freud down and patiently explained this
interpretation to him. (I don't suppose he needed much convincing.)
LH
>See, a *male* puts himself into a *dark channel-like place*. The testicular
>cancer would be, to the unconscious, an ironic "punishment" for symbolically
>"doing it."
>
>Sense or SWAG? Seriously, you gotta wonder.
>
>JL
>
>On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 11:51 AM, Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster: Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
>> Subject: Re: "get ones ashes hauled", and sweeping ones
>> (or
>> someones) chimney
>>
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> In any case, wouldn't it be the building owner--not the chimny sweep--who
>> "got his ashes hauled" (in contrast to the young boy who hauled those
>> ashes)?
>>
> > --Charlie
>>
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