RE "Shoot beaver"?

[George Thompson]

RB writes:
>
> If all the heterosexual and bisexual males on this list-serv now
> contribute their memories and associations with someone having seen
> glimpses of uncovered female crotches in public places, members (no
> pun intended) will have to spend even more time than usual deleting
> the tedious messages.
>

Back in September, when I set off the prolonged "shagging and fucking" discussion here, one of the first responses was from RB:
> I'm condfused about this. Does this mean that the speaker occasionally
> did men as well as women?
> On Sep 1, 2010, at 10:05 PM, George Thompson wrote:
>
> > as for myself I stick as close to Radicati's Arse as a Bum Bailiff
> to Lord Deloraine'
>
I replied, off-list, that that was exactly what it meant.  RB forwarded my reply to the list, in order to make a comment on the sexual practices of the 18th C.

As Huck says of the Widder Douglas, "of course that was all right, because she done it herself".

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

----- Original Message -----
From: Ronald Butters <ronbutters at AOL.COM>
Date: Wednesday, November 10, 2010 11:10 am
Subject: Re: RE "Shoot beaver"?
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU

> Or maybe it was never so described at all?
>
> If all the heterosexual and bisexual males on this list-serv now
> contribute their memories and associations with someone having seen
> glimpses of uncovered female crotches in public places, members (no
> pun intended) will have to spend even more time than usual deleting
> the tedious messages.
>
>
> On Nov 10, 2010, at 9:48 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
> > At 8:34 AM -0500 11/10/10, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >> Former Yankee pitcher Jim Bouton achieved a _success de scandale_
> in 1969-70
> >> when he reported in his memoir, _Ball Four_, that certain Yankee greats
> >> would prowl under the stands trying to "shoot beaver."
> >>
> >> HDAS has 1974 for female "shooters," 1969 for the male kind.
> >>
> >> JL
> >
> > I associate it with the scene in "Basic Instinct", a movie about 20
> > years old (and hence a classic of the silver screen) in which murder
> > suspect Sharon Stone, in a short white dress, uncrosses her legs
> > across from her interrogator Michael Douglas.  Can't recall if she
> > was described as shooting beaver at the time, or only afterward.
> >
> > LH
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
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------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org