"Cock"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Here is an  unquestionable English ex., from a centuries-old bawdy song sung
in 1978 by Danny Brazil, a Traveller in Gloucestershire. Brazil seems to
have been born around 1910. He is described as "illiterate." He learned many
songs from his father:

"She run downstairs for to piddle in the pot.
Up jumped the little crabfish and caught her by the cock."

http://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/brazils.htm#fam

I've seen dozens of variant texts of this song, dating back to Bishop
Percy's ms.,  but this is the only one that has this rhyme. Presumably the
couplet originated in the nineteenth century.

JL




On Fri, Feb 11, 2011 at 6:09 PM, <ronbutters at aol.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       ronbutters at AOL.COM
> Subject:      Re: "Cock"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Perhaps, as Hamlet said, the readiness is all. Or the gaydar.
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Feb 11, 2011, at 5:03 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
> > On Thu, Feb 10, 2011 at 8:59 PM,  <ronbutters at aol.com> wrote:
> >> [T]hat doesn't mean the little guy likes girls!
> >
> > Quite so!
> >
> > Absent context, one never knows, do one? :-)
> >
> > --
> > -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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