query: a cock and cock story

[Jonathan Lighter]

Wouldn't "organ-neutrality" be kind of a postmodern concept for the Vox
Populi (Vox Dei) to have come up with a hundred and fifty or more years ago?
I can't think of any English exx., unless you think the recent application
in umliterature of phallic words to the clitoris counts.  Actually, it
obviously does, but it's in the postmodern age where there's nothing but
words anyway.  I bet most of that umliterature stuff never even happened!

But maybe I'm just being a spoilsport.  Who knows what thoughts flicked
through Philip Freneau's unconscious?

JL
On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 10:33 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: query: a cock and cock story
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 2:18 AM -0400 7/25/10, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
> >Laurence Horn wrote:
> >>....
> >>I've been looking at the relationship between the
> >>two "cock"s in question ....
> >>
> >>Cites begin in the 19th c., with:
> >>1867 Doten _Journals_ II 857 [In cipher.] We felt
> >>of each other's cocks...and then she got on and
> >>fucked me bully.
> >>
> >--
> >
> >The writer is Alfred Doten. It is p. 957. The cipher is transparent. On
> >the same page is an instance of "get [one's] gun off" (shown under "gun"
> >in HDAS), applied to man and to woman here.
>
> Thanks, Doug.  Yes, I just wanted to confirm that suspicion, since I
> haven't come across too many examples of sex-undifferentiated (or
> organ-neutral) use of "cock".
>
> >
> >--
> >>....
> >>
> >>(i) Are there dialects/speakers who freely use
> >>both "cock" lexemes?
> >--
> >
> >Apparently Doten. Presumably others of his time. Maybe some now, I don't
> >know, but as I recall "cock" = "pussy" speakers of my acquaintance
> >(decades ago) eschewed "cock" = "penis", used "dick" (which I think was
> >much more common in my neighborhood back then anyway).
>
> And several cites, including that Read (1928) verse from the HDAS
> entry, distinguish the woman's cock from the man's prick, as also in
> Wilson's reports.
>
> >--
> >>(ii) Do we know the derivation of the female
> >>"cock"?
> >--
> >
> >Hard to test, but my guess would be that it's just a generalization from
> >the male term. There was/is considerable 'taboo' involved, hence
> >reference to the "private parts" with ambiguous terms ("thing", "place",
> >"down there"). Maybe "cock" was treated as such a term, applicable to
> >man and woman. Sounds fair, I guess.
> >
> >Note that Doten's "gun" surely would seem to be a masculine metaphor
> >also, but also freely applied (by him) to a woman.
> >
> Interesting.  Of course 19th c. (and earlier?) erotica is rife with
> sex-neutral use of the "discharge" metaphor (both as an intransitive
> verb and a noun, although not included in the OED entries), so
> getting one's gun off wouldn't be much of a leap.  But I think Doug
> is right in bringing the locution up here in support of co-deriving
> the two cocks ('penis'/'vulva').  Doug's skepticism toward the
> 'shell-fish' ("cockle") derivation of the female "cock" is shared by
> De Camp and Hancock in this nice passage from their book on creoles
> and pidgins, brought to my attention off-list by JP:
> <http://tinyurl.com/37r5vgp>
> http://tinyurl.com/37r5vgp
> De Camp & Hancock also posit complementary (ethno-regional)
> distribution rather than extensive overlap of the two meanings of
> "cock" (or the two lexemes, as the case may be).
>
> As to their tracking the etymology of "cock" (in both variants) to
> "_kach_, a verb referring to the act of intercourse" (p. 20)--I'm no
> expert on "Afro-English syncretisms", but this one strikes me as
> another instance of crying Wolof.
>
> Thanks for the feedback!
>
> LH
>
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