[Ads-l] Up the wazoo/kazoo

[Robin Hamilton]

The commonest (perhaps because respectable) Rhyming Slang sense for "Raspberry
Tart" is "heart", but "fart" is also found.  I don't know which is the earlier,
but the "heart" version, unsurprisingly, is more fully documented.

That said, Julian Franklyn , _A Dictionary of Rhyming Slang_ (1961), easily the
best current text in this area, has:

raspberry tart (1) Heart, (2) fart (1) had a fair currency in the 19 C., but
(2),
which was contemporaneous, killed it. The term applied to the actual breaking of
wind but that, now, only secondarily: an oral sound of the same character, and
expressing disapproval, is generally accepted as a ‘raspberry’. It is probably
of
theatrical origin, with reference to ‘the bird’, and is often reduced to razz,
or to
razzer.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KTZGAQAAQBAJ&dq=franklin+dictionary+rhyming+slang&q=raspberry+tart#v=onepage&q&f=false
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KTZGAQAAQBAJ&dq=franklin+dictionary+rhyming+slang&q=raspberry+tart#v=onepage&q&f=false

Franklyn, unfortunately, doesn't provide citations.

Robin.

> 
>     On 01 May 2017 at 21:34 George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU> wrote:
> 
> 
>     P. R. -- "razz", which is generally believed to be from Rasberry Tart?
> 
>     "Rasberry Tart" looks like Rhyming Slang for "fart" -- or is that already
>     agreed?
> 
>     GAT
> 
>     On Mon, May 1, 2017 at 4:22 PM, Peter Reitan <pjreitan at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
>     > In 2003 there was some discussion here about the use of "up the
>     > wazoo/kazoo" as a reference to anus, in a thread started by Sam
>     > Clements, I
>     > believe.
>     >
>     > http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2003-April.txt
>     >
>     >
>     > In looking at kazoo and bazooka, and seeing "bazoo", "kazoo", "gazoo",
>     > and
>     > "razoo" all used to refer to an instruments that make loud or
>     > uncomfortable
>     > noises, and in the context of metaphorically blowing hot air (blow one's
>     > bazoo), it made me wonder whether it is "bazoo" might be the ultimate
>     > source of all of the later euphemisms that rhyme with "bazoo".
>     >
>     >
>     > And if so, could "razoo" have had some influence on "razz", which is
>     > generally believed to be from Rasberry Tart?
>     >
>     > ------------------------------------------------------------
>     > 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.
> 
>     But when aroused at the Trump of Doom / Ye shall start, bold kings, from
>     your lowly tomb. . .
>     L. H. Sigourney, "Burial of Mazeen", Poems. Boston, 1827, p. 112
> 
>     The Trump of Doom -- affectionately (of course) also known as The Dunghill
>     Toadstool. (Here's a picture of one.)
> 
>    http://www.parliament.uk/worksofart/artwork/james-gillray/an-excrescence---a-fungus-alias-a-toadstool-upon-a-dunghill/3851
> 
>     ------------------------------------------------------------
>     The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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