"rattle" = have sexual intercourse with, 2001

[Joel S. Berson]

At 2/22/2011 05:04 PM, William Salmon wrote:
>...
>I was thinking of William Byrd, too, from his Secret Diary, which
>was supposed to have been written in the early 1700s. It was written
>in an older shorthand form, and not translated till the 1940s. But
>at least in the "translation" there's lots of rogering going on. I
>wondered if the use of that particular word was the translator's
>choice or if it was clear from the shorthand that that's what Byrd meant.

I see the OED (July 2010) now has an earlier citation for the verb
... so it's apparently not just a translation from shorthand ... and then Byrd:

1699    'C. U.' Let. Convocation Univ. Oxf. 28   The Master Rogered
such an one.
1711    W. Byrd Diary 26 Dec. (1941) 459,   I rogered my wife.

For Byrd, you might ask Kevin Joel Berland, of Pennsylvania State
University, who I think has recently edited and edition of the Secret Diaries.

Joel

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