[Ads-l] fuck ton

Tue Aug 7 14:21:34 UTC 2018

P.S.: I can't recall any U.S. exx. of "cockey/ cock" 'clitoris,'

Now I wonder if the vaginal sense was transferred from the clitoral sense,
w/o gratuitous  interference from "coquille."

Theory: we'll never find out.

JL

On Tue, Aug 7, 2018 at 10:18 AM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> From last September. The 19th C. ex. referred to was from a bawdy song of
> the 1830's. If it can't be found in the Archive, and I didn't post it can
> find it at the campus library (I think). The simplest explanation seems to
> be that U.S, currency came from England.
>
> >
> Seems I posted an English ex. from the 19th century at some point, though
> I can't find it quickly in the archive.
>
> This is from a traditional song collected in Gloucestershire in 1978.
> Note  the archaic use of "leather."  The diction generally is 19th C. Many
> texts of the song have been collected and printed (since the 1960s), but
> this is the only one I've seen with "cock."
>
>
> http://glostrad.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/151-Danny-Brazil-Crabfish-TheSC.pdf
>
> "She run downstairs for to piddle in the pot....
> Up jumped the little crabfish and caught her by the cock.
>
> "Oh husband, oh husband, oh husband come hither,
> The devil's in the chamber and got me by the leather."
>
> On Mon, Aug 6, 2018 at 9:47 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
> wrote:
>
>> > On Aug 6, 2018, at 12:09 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > Not to boast, but all the um- and non-um-words in that collection of
>> > Joyce's letters that are relevant to American usage are in (or were
>> slated
>> > to be in later volumes of)  HDAS.
>> >
>> > JL
>>
>> True enough, but while _cock_ ‘vulva” has an entry in HDAS*, the Joycean
>> _cock_ ‘clitoris’ (as in the 3 December 1909 letter to Nora excerpted
>> below) or, for that matter, _cockey_ (from the letter to Nora six days
>> later), does not.  I would wager, without any particular support for it,
>> that many languages use a diminutive for one of their ‘penis’ words for
>> ‘clitoris’, a la _cockey_.
>>
>> LH
>>
>> *HDAS, s.v. _cock_, n. 3: So. & Black E.
>> a. The vulva or vagina; cunt.
>>
>> Jon does give a tentative etymology:
>> “perh. fr.  Eng. Dial. _cock_ ‘cockle, shell-fish’”
>> which does indeed seem to suggest the “coquille” etymology Gawne notes.
>> Am I right in recall some pushback from someone on the list (maybe Jon
>> himself) against this derivation? The 1867 Doten journal entry which (after
>> decoding) reveals that the diarist and his “lady love went to bed and felt
>> of each other’s cocks all [they] pleased” before she climbed aboard would
>> seem to challenge the idea that the two senses have completely distinct
>> etymologies and to point toward polysemy rather than homonymy.  Or (just
>> speculating) could Doten have been referring, like Joyce, to “that little
>> cock at the end of [her] cunt”?  Does it affect our speculation to recall
>> that Doten, who hailed from Plymouth, MA and traveled to California for the
>> Gold Rush and Nevada, was (like Joyce) not fluent in either So. or Black
>> E.?
>>
>>
>> > On Mon, Aug 6, 2018 at 10:55 AM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> >> Very nice, and it speaks below to a thread we indulged in a while back,
>> >> with a slight twist.  (And note the references to Jesse and Jon.). The
>> >> derivation of _cock_ ‘vulva’ (as opposed to ‘clitoris’) from
>> _coquille_ was
>> >> indeed entertained in our earlier colloquies but, if memory serves,
>> >> dismissed (or at least vigorously challenged).
>> >>
>> >> LH
>> >>
>> >> P.S.  Nice glosswork by Lauren Gawne, but can someone who labors in the
>> >> vineyards of antique umliterature really have been innocent of
>> >> “cockstand”?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> =======================
>> >> Cock (female genitals)
>> >>
>> >> “If he did, did they go far enough to touch that little cock at the
>> end of
>> >> your cunt?” (3 December 1909)
>> >>
>> >> The use of ‘cock’ to mean clitoris is uncommon. There’s no attestation
>> in
>> >> the OED, MW or even Green’s Dictionary of Slang.
>> >>
>> >> Update: The above paragraph previously read: “The use of ‘cock’ to mean
>> >> female genitalia rather than male is uncommon.” There is an entry in
>> >> Green’s Dictionary of Slang for ‘cock’ meaning female genitals in
>> general,
>> >> and attested use in British English from 1833. He gives the origin as
>> the
>> >> French coquille (a shell of the kind like an oyster or cockle). This
>> sense
>> >> of ‘cock’ has also been the predominent sense in Southern American
>> English.
>> >> In an article on the US ‘cock’ dialect divide, Jesse Sheidlower notes
>> that
>> >> in Historical Dictionary of American Slang the earliest record of
>> ‘cock’
>> >> for female genitalia is 1867. I learnt a thing today.
>> >>
>> >> Other example:
>> >>
>> >> “Tickle your little cockey while you write to make you say worse and
>> >> worse.” (9 December 1909)
>> >> ======================
>> >>
>> >>> On Aug 6, 2018, at 10:22 AM, Andy Bach <afbach at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>>> On Mon, Jul 30, 2018 at 7:34 PM, Jonathan Lighter <
>> >> wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
>> >>>>> wrote:
>> >>>>> A handy guide from Iva Cheung on the Strong Language blog...
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>
>> https://stronglang.wordpress.com/2015/01/31/units-of-fucking-measure/
>> >>>>>
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> Interesting site - they offer up yet another "mickey" which might help
>> >> the
>> >>> "take the mickey out of" search, from James Joyce's lecherous letters
>> to
>> >>> his wife, Nora:
>> >>>
>> >>
>> https://stronglang.wordpress.com/2017/05/08/fuckbird-cockstand-and-frigging-some-annotations-of-james-joyces-erotic-letters-to-his-wife-nora-barnacle/
>> >>> Mickey
>> >>> “gently take out your lover’s fat mickey, lap it up in your moist
>> mouth”
>> >> (8
>> >>> December 1909)
>> >>>
>> >>> This is a predominantly Irish English slang term for penis. Two of the
>> >> four
>> >>> quotes in the OED for the term are from Joyce (one of which is from
>> these
>> >>> letters). Be careful though, ‘Mickey’ is a lot of things to a lot of
>> >>> different people, not only is it a cartoon mouse, but also a Roman
>> >> Catholic
>> >>> or Irish person, or (I assume by extension) a potato (US English), a
>> >>> bullock or noisy miner bird (Australian English) or a small bottle of
>> >>> liquor (Canadian English).
>> >>>
>> >>> --
>> >>>
>> >>> a
>> >>>
>> >>> Andy Bach,
>> >>> afbach at gmail.com
>> >>> 608 658-1890 cell
>> >>> 608 261-5738 wk
>> >>>
>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> >>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> >>
>> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> >> 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
>>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>

-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
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