"Cock"

[Jonathan Lighter]

>But if not, how do you account for its transmigration across the gender
line?

Wow! Argumentum ignoratio!

But one explanation might be a distinct etymon.

> It's no more unlikely than the historically attested fact that "prick" was
once a euphemism for "pintle."

Sure it is. Because neither "prick" nor "pintle" also meant "vagina' at the
same time. But perhaps I misapprehend the argument.

And do we know that "prick" was a euphemism rather than a vulgarism? (Not
that I'm sure it has any bearing on the issue of a unisex c-word.) OED calls
"prick" "coarse slang" but doesn't label "pintle."

JL

On Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 3:25 PM, Baker, John <JMB at stradley.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Baker, John" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Cock"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>         I'm not sure why euphemisms don't count, or why we're assuming
> that "cock" is the basic term.  I have more than one word in my
> wordhoard with the applicable meaning, and I assume that those speakers
> did too.  For all I know, some of these speakers did consider "cock" to
> be a euphemism.  It's no more unlikely than the historically attested
> fact that "prick" was once a euphemism for "pintle."
>
>        Of course, I don't actually know that there ever were any people
> who had "cock" as a unisex term.  But if not, how do you account for its
> transmigration across the gender line?
>
>
> John Baker
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> Of Jonathan Lighter
> Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2011 2:22 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: "Cock"
>
> >there must have been at least some speakers for whom
> "cock" was unisex.
>
> But - if there were - were they statistically significant? Or lone
> eccentrics?
>
> I'm not even sure that there *were* any (though of course there is
> always
> the truly odd and historically inconsequential exception).  It all
> depends
> on the dialectal distribution of the contrasting pairs. For a genuine
> tradition of unisex usage, you'd need not a community where the terms
> were
> generally accepted as interchangeable.  If anyone has any evidence of a
> speech community of that sort at any time on the history of English,
> please
> post.
>
> People who merely *know* of the synonymy under discussion (e.g.,
> everybody
> on this thread), don't count unless they unselfconsciously use the word
> in a
> unisex manner. In other words, conceive of it as having a single
> meaning:
> "the male or female genitals: used indiscriminately."
>
> Euphemisms like "privates" don't count, because they *are* euphemisms:
> in
> other words, learned as tactful replacements for the basic terms. The
> basic
> terms are what we're talking about, no?
>
> "Limb" is hardly comparable. Arms and legs are more similar in terms of
> everyday perceptions and emotive associations than penises and vaginas.
> And
> those are what we're talking about.
>
> Of course, that's only my opinion.
>
> JL
>
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