[Ads-l] Crotch goblin (for the =?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=9Cshitgibbon=E2=80=9D_?=files)

Ben Zimmer bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM
Tue Nov 15 15:07:15 UTC 2022


In Urban Dictionary with various other meanings back to Feb. 10, 2003, and
with the "child" meaning from Sep. 28, 2005.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=crotch%20goblin

On Tue, Nov 15, 2022 at 7:15 AM Neal Whitman <nwhitman at ameritech.net> wrote:

> On a Facebook comment thread a few weeks ago, someone referred to kids as
> “crotch goblins”.
>
> This seems to be a perfect example of a shitgibbon, recalling Ben Zimmer’s
> writings from ~2017: compound noun consisting of one-syllable taboo noun
> plus trochaic noun, with bonus point for assonance in the stressed vowels.
>
> It sounded so canonical I even assumed I’d find it in Ben’s columns or
> emails, but I haven’t. In the BYU English corpora, the earliest example
> I’ve found is from 2019 in the NOW Corpus, which cites an earlier usage,
> flagged with quotation marks:
>
> Some of the mums joked she should chuck the kids out for causing such a
> mess, with one hilariously referring to the child as a " crotch goblin ".
>
>

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