[Ads-l] Another rare oldie

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Sun Nov 29 09:02:11 UTC 2015


On Sat, Nov 28, 2015 at 8:31 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> Under "knob"


It occurred to me to look there, but I didn't find it. My not finding it
being no guarantee that it wasn't there, I was, therefore, motivated to
question the assertion that the phrase was not in HDAS. I'm also familiar
with "slob knob," without being impressed by it as a consequence of its,
IMO, banality. It's as lame and as obvious as "boylie mag."

Is "tickling the knob" the 17th-C, phrase? Surely, the act itself is older
than 1660, gnome sane? ;-)

What I heard in '61 was, "She polishes knob," said to A by B about C in an
unsuccessful attempt to kill A's interest in C by grossing him out. "The
*real* soul-brother," to borrow Richard Pryor's felicitous phrase, being a
Chrishtan, is somewhat more puritanical in deed than in word. Kinsey noted
that puritanical streak as characteristic of the lower orders, in his
ground-breaking Report.
-- 
-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

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