Vivid slang: jackhole and stone

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Sat Apr 26 03:54:32 UTC 2014


At 4/25/2014 10:54 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>On Apr 25, 2014, at 10:16 PM, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
>
> > On Apr 25, 2014, at 5:21 PM, "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> I don't know how common "stones" applied to a female is.  (I assume
> >> the figurative use is already in the OED, but I didn't find it quickly.)
> >>
> >> Joel
> >>
> >
> > "stones" applied to a female is pretty common on tv (in police
> shows, for example)_, but i have no idea how long it's been around.
>
>As, of course, has "balls", although maybe on the shows on basic and
>pay cable rather than network cop shows, occurring also in
>"break/bust X's balls", where X may be any gender.

Is it fair to assume that "stones" is the euphemism for "balls",
designed to get around the TV censors?  Just as "jackhole" is
described as the euphemism for "jackass" (presumably unacceptable
when applied to humans rather than beasts) and "asshole" (when
applied to anything).

Joel


>LH

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list