antedating tit (and other things) (UNCLASSIFIED)

Tue Nov 6 22:53:52 UTC 2012

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

WRT to the 1809/1833 cites, so it does (OED n3 I. 1.)

But the 1904 cite seems to mean "teats of a sow", rather than "sow".

But if you say otherwise, I'd defer to your better judgement.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> Behalf Of Jonathan Lighter
> Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2012 4:28 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: antedating tit (and other things) (UNCLASSIFIED)
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: antedating tit (and other things) (UNCLASSIFIED)
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> --------
>
> Thanks, Bill.
>
> The pre-1904 "tits," believe it or not, are horses.
>
> Interestingly enough, the usual word in off-color 18th and 19th C.
> publications is "bubs," modern "boobs." The vast majority of these,
> however, are British.
>
> The earliest ex. I found:
>
> 1862 in J. A. Frank & G. A. Reaves _Seeing the Elephant_ (N.Y.:
> Greenwood,
> 1989) 42: _Sow belly_ ...is fat bacon with tits on it as long as your
> finger.
>
> Your 1904 likewise appears to refer to a sow.
>
> Jon
>
> On Tue, Nov 6, 2012 at 4:56 PM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC <
> Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil> wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> > Poster:       "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> > Subject:      antedating tit (and other things) (UNCLASSIFIED)
> >
> >
---------------------------------------------------------------------
> -
> > ---------
> >
> > Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> > Caveats: NONE
> >
> > All of these cites are from HathiTrust
> >
> >
> > OED has "tit" (=mammary gland) only back to 1928 (although it has
> "teat"
> > almost a millennium before that).
> >
> >
> > I. [Isaac] Pocock _Yes or No?  A Musical Farce, in Two Acts_ London:
> J.
> > Barker, 1809
> > p. 37
> > "With spirits gay I mount the box, the tits up to their traces, My
> > elbows squar'd, my wrist turn'd down, dash off to Epsom races."
> >
> >
> > _American Railroad Journal, and Advocate of Internal Improvements_
> vol
> > 2 #3, Jun 8, 1833 p. 362 col 2 "By the way, there were then in
France
> > a number of what was termed voitures de chasse, hunting carriages,
> > very fancifully constructed, resembling our caravans, and having
> > sometimes a stag's head and fore quarters in front; over which a
> > coachman, all gold or silver lace, and his hair highly dressed, used
> > to take his seat, driving either four-in-hand, the horses all too
far
> > from their work, the leaders with very long traces, seldom tight,
> (for
> > these dressy coachmen did not know now to keep the tits up to their
> > traces,) or with four horses, the leaders having a postillion with
> > cocked hat and jack boots."
> >
> > Marion Hughes _[Three years in Arkansaw]_ Chicago:  M. A. Donohue &
> > Co., 1904.
> > p. 72 "Instead of the stovepipe being in her way it served as a
> > corset, and held her tits up out of the way, and she was out of
sight
> > in the woods before you could say suey!"
> >
> >
> > "tango uniform" [= TU in military alphabet, acronym for "tits up"]
> > [not it OED]
> >
> > _Approach_ Jul 1977 p 27 col 1
> > "The Gremlin that made 303's TACAN go "Tango-Uniform" must have held
> > enroute because, a few minutes later, the azimuth and DME in 305
also
> > failed!"
> >
> > _Combat Crew_ vol 30 no 5, May 1980 p 16 col 1 "If the pilot can
> > reliably make the entry, the navs can fix a radar set that just went
> > tango uniform (totally unusable)."
> >
> > _Approach_ vol 35 no 9 Mar 1990, p. 15 col 2 "However, his basic
> > flight intstruments went "tango uniform" and the airmanship he
> > demonstrated in getting back earned him the Air Medal."
> >
> > _Flying Safety_ vol 51 no 1, Jan 1995 p 3 col 1 "Maybe my
> subconscious
> > mind interpreted/misinterpreted the HUD attitude faster than my
> > conscious mind, and when the attitude didn't match up with what the
> > subconscious thought it ought to be, my somatosensory system went
> > Tango Uniform."
> >
> >
> >
> > "tough titty" [OED has "tough tiddy" from 1934, under entry for
> > "tough"]
> >
> > _Harvard College Class of 1906 Fifteenth Anniversary Report (No. 4)_
> > Cambridge, MA: University Press, 1921.  p. 83 "Having suffered more
> > from the War than most Americans, as I'd been in it and had friends
> > lost in it and knew how rotten the Huns were, it was pretty tough
> > titty to have to go about wearing civilian clothes and walk the
> > streets looking the picture of health."
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > "Fixing to" -- not in OED
> > Kermit Daugherty _Out of the Red Brush_  Cleveland and NY: World
> > Publishing Co., 1954 p. 11 "We took it perty much as a joke an it
> > never crossed our minds how that contraption was fixin to turn our
> > little world upside down."
> >
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> truth."
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