[Ads-l] Bad language of the 1890s

[Amy West]

On 6/19/15 12:00 AM, ADS-L automatic digest system wrote:
> make a ballocks of:  wreck, spoil; "ball up."
This I find interesting: so, at one point this was in the American 
dialect as well as British, but then it fell out and has come back in 
via British media?

(I do use "bollocks/bollox up," but it's a pretty conscious 
choice/affectation when I do. . . . )

---Amy West

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