[Ads-l] "a nice name for a nasty thing"

[Jesse Sheidlower]

Grose's _Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue_ (1785) famously defined "C**t" as "a nasty name for a nasty thing".

Jesse Sheidlower

On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 02:04:55PM -0400, Laurence Horn wrote:
> Can anyone help me track down the first use of this definition of euphemism?  Google hits on the phrase are amazingly scanty--just four, including this as the earliest:
> 
> The Observer March 9, 1939 Page 1
> 
> "Birth control is a nice name for a nasty thing"
> 
> (In the left column--well, physically left, anyway--just under the story about the heroic victory of the Spanish people, under the steady guidance of Generalissimo Franco with a little help from his friends, over the "foul and fell foes of the Spanish and Catholic name")  
> 
> But this usage seems to presuppose an earlier common ground in which the phrase is standardly used to characterize euphemism.  Garson? Anyone?
> 
> LH
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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