[Ads-l] OT: Sheelanagige was Re: It was not permitted to pass.

[Laurence Horn]

> On May 29, 2017, at 6:49 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> Toothed?  That's a new on on me.

Just your standard garden variety vagina dentata, no?
> 
> As for the Siren....well, she *is* a Siren.
> 
> JL
> 
> On Mon, May 29, 2017 at 2:48 PM, Amy West <medievalist at w-sts.com> wrote:
> 
>> On 5/23/17 12:00 AM, ADS-L automatic digest system wrote:
>> 
>>> Date:    Mon, 22 May 2017 14:36:58 -0400
>>> From:    Wilson Gray<hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>>> Subject: It was not permitted to pass.
>>> 
>>> On Mon, May 22, 2017 at 12:07 PM, Jonathan Lighter<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com
>>>> 
>>> wrote:
>>> Perhaps you've observed that the OED def. is, shall we say, very discreet.
>>> 
>>> About as discreet as the version now used by Starbucks. Apparently, they
>>> had no idea at all what that image was a symbol of. There are also
>>> continental variants. I came across it first in the journal,_Via Domitia_,
>>> noted as a former or a current feature of the exterior and the interior -
>>> on finials of pews, etc. - of churches in the Midi.
>>> 
>>> The original version used by Starbucks is below, if the system permits it
>>> to pass.
>>> 
>>> http://idsgn.org/posts/starbucks-reveals-new-logo-drops-wordmark/
>>> 
>>> -- -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
>>> 
>> I don't get it: the Starbucks logo is a mermaid (or as later identified a
>> siren). A sheelanagig is a very different thing: a grotesque squatting
>> female form with a toothed vulva.
>> 
>> Yeah, I'd say that the OED def leaves out all the differentia that you
>> would use to identify a sheelanagig. It's discreet to the point of being
>> useless.
>> 
>> ---Amy West
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> "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

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