"Balls" goes mainstream and polite!

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Here are the two most interesting cites I've seen in a preliminary
search for the "had to" / "had two balls" wordplay.

Year: 1927
Book Title: Immortalia: An Anthology of American Ballads, Sailors'
Songs, Cowboy Songs, College Songs, Parodies, Limericks, and other
humorous verses and doggerel.
Author: A Gentleman about Town
Note on Publication: One thousand copies of this book have been
printed for subscribers. None is for general sale.
Database: Horntip collection

Poem Title: The Night of the King's Castration
Author: Anonymous
Start Page: 140
Quote Page: 142

http://bit.ly/Z9KbL3

http://www.horntip.com/html/books_%26_MSS/1920s/1927_immortalia_%28various%29/index.htm

[Begin excerpt]
The queen came sweeping down the hall-
"Greetings, Lord of the Sod," she said
"What sod do you mean?" cried out the king.
"Lord of the sodomy," she said.

"And as for you," she added then,
"You're not so much to me, you see,
For I could be king if I had to,"-
"Two what?" he cried! "Balls," answered she.
[End excerpt]


Year: 1976 (Date in text 1959)
Journal: Southern Folklore Quarterly
Volume: 40
Article Title: Bawdy Monologues and Rhymed Recitations
Artice Author: G. Legman (Gershon Legman)
Article Start Page: 59
Database: Horntip Collection

http://bit.ly/1Bfpmvj

http://www.horntip.com/html/books_&_MSS/1970s/1976_bawdy_monologues_and_rhymed_recitation__g_legman_%28article%29/index.htm

[Begin excerpt from Page 70 and 71]
The following text is from a male student at the University of
California, Los Angeles, 1959:

'Twas the night of the King's castration: the royal ball was coming
off. Counts, discounts, and no-'counts stood around the courtyard,
camel-dunging one another; for bullshit was as yet unheard-of.
. . .

When the king saw this he cried, "Balls!" not because he wanted to,
but because he had two. And the queen replied, "Balls? If I had two I
could be king!"
[End excerpt]

On Thu, Sep 4, 2014 at 1:21 PM, George Thompson <george.thompson at nyu.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "Balls" goes mainstream and polite!
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> WG:
> "Balls!" said the queen. "If I had them, then I'd be king!"
>
> A common, nonsense - AFAIK - extension of the simple exclamation used among
> EM, back when.
>
> GAT:
> I recall hearing this ca. 1960 as
> "Balls!" said the queen. "If I had two, I would be king!" -- introducing a
> play on "if I had two" and "If I had to" = "If I needed to".
>
> GAT
>
>
> On Sun, Aug 31, 2014 at 6:46 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> "Balls!" said the queen. "If I had them, then I'd be king!"
>>
>> A common, nonsense - AFAIK - extension of the simple exclamation used among
>> EM, back when.
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Aug 31, 2014 at 9:52 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> > -----------------------
>> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>> > Subject:      "Balls" goes mainstream and polite!
>> >
>> >
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >
>> > From a righty website:
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> http://dailycaller.com/2014/04/09/iowa-senate-hopeful-will-use-his-glock-to-blow-your-balls-off/
>> >
>> > JL
>> >
>> > --
>> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
>> truth."
>> >
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> -Wilson
>> -----
>> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
>> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>> -Mark Twain
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>
> --
> George A. Thompson
> The Guy Who Still Looks Stuff Up in Books.
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> Univ. Pr., 1998..
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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