"Cock"

[Baker, John]

        I don't think this is argumentum ignoratio elenchi (or is there
some other argumentum ignoratio you had in mind?).  I'm specifically
responding to the question, which I raised originally, whether there
were people for whom "cock" is a unisex term, so I'm not failing to
address the issue in question.  I believe it's a valid line of inquiry
to proceed from effect ("cock" means the masculine genitalia for some
and the feminine genitalia for others) to plausible causes.

        Jon suggests a possible explanation might be a distinct etymon.
That strikes me as unlikely, but of course other examples of confusion
from similar but distinct etymons could be cited, so it certainly isn't
impossible.  There seems to be some uncertainty as to the etymon for
cock=genitalia anyway.

        My point with "prick" and "pintle" was simply that,
historically, there were some people for whom "prick" was a euphemism,
which supports the possibility that there may have been people for whom
"cock" was a euphemism.  The classic quotation in the OED is from 1655:
"The French men call this fish the Asses-prick, and Dr Wotton termeth it
grosly the Pintle fish."  I agree with Jon that this has limited bearing
on the issue of a unisex c-word; I don't consider it very important
whether "cock" was a euphemism or not.


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 4:28 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "Cock"

>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
> -----------------------
> 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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>



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