Word or phrase origins.

[cantdog]

I would too, and not just hands and feet, either, Lost One...

http://no-troy.planetaclix.pt/images/mexico.gif
cantdog

 

[Guest]

I would too, and not just hands and feet, either, Lost One...

I'm flabbergasted. Really, even for this forum. P.

 

[Sappholovers]

horny?

I've never liked the word "horny" to describe the condition of being ripe or green with desire for sex.

I'm curious about the terms that are used in other languages to describe this condition (or that are used as translations of "horny"). How did this term arise? Any suggestions about a substitute metaphor for it in English?

My own preference is to describe it is "swelling and cresting" with desire.

 

[snooper]

... The definition that started this thread is crap.

Is that CRAP as in

Child's Reaction Annoying Parents?

 

[Guest]

COCK

from : Ask Lilith

Few men mind being called a "cock" - slang of course, but the majority of men view this as a compliment to their sexual prowness. As Charles Panati writes:

A man may be a "proud cock." He may be "cocksure" of himself and strut with a "cocky gait", perhaps while walking his "cocker spaniel". He may regale you with "cock-and-bull" stories and after downing several "cocktails" appear "cock-eyed." Depending on his sexual orientation, he might even be a "cocksucker" or a "cocktease." How did all of these "cockamamy" expressions arise?

The origin of the word "cock" comes from Old Englis and Old French, or coc where it comes the name of a male chicken, or rooster and his call. The actual first use of the word "cock" to mean rooster, or a man's penis is unknown, but if you review word origins in the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest written example of a man being referred to as a "cock" comes from a description by the poet Chaucer, when he noticed a village worker knocking on the doors of village residents at the break of dawn - thus serving the function of a rooster. By the close of the 14th Century, men were called in complimental terms - a "cock".

and there you have it.. the creation of the word cock..
*humbly*
vella the cock happy chick

 

[NoJo]

Thank you, Perdita.

The definitive definitions of shit.

Just what we need to brighten our day.

The definition that started this thread is crap.

Regards from Og

Thanks, og. Incidentally, the term "crap" predates Thomas Crapper, inventor of the valve flush toilet. He was simply a case of nominative determinism.

Crap was, like so many other swear words, an invention of the British army. It stood for "Curry, Rice and Peas", the diet on which the unfortunate infantry serving in the Punjabi campaign of 1823 were forced to live for the best part of thirteen years.

 

[Guest]

crap

Speaking of "crap", I had an Irish landlady once who pronounced it in two to four syllables depending on the situation. I wish I could do the word such justice.

I also like how Yorkshire folk (well, at least one bloke) pronounces whore in two syllables.

Perdita

 

[Guest]

Re: horny?

I've never liked the word "horny" to describe the condition of being ripe or green with desire for sex. ... How did this term arise?

Sapph, per the OED, until more recently it was a term reserved for men; you'll see why per the quotes below. - Perdita
----------------
from def. 5c for horn: An erect penis; an erection. Also in phr. to have (get) the horn, to be sexually excited. (Not in polite use.)

1785 GROSE Dict. Vulgar T., Horn Cholick, a temporary priapism. 1879-80 Pearl (1970) 257 A man with light trousers, of decency shorn, Stop and talk to young ladies while having the horn. 1889 BARRÈRE & LELAND Dict. Slang I. 475/2 ‘To have the horn’, to be in a state of sexual desire. 1922 JOYCE Ulysses 263 Got the horn or what? he said. 1968 J. R. ACKERLEY My Father & Myself xiii. 148 He remarked to me then with a chuckle that the thing that had worried him most was that he might not be able to ‘get the horn’ again. 1968 L. BERG Risinghill 121 ‘Why does a boy get the “horn”?’ ‘The “horn” or the erection of the penis is necessary to make sure that the sperm is placed well inside the body of the woman.’ 1972 Guardian 3 Apr. 11/3 Dirty old goat... He only bows his head to get his horn up.

horny. 2b. Sexually excited; lecherous. (Chiefly used of a man.) slang.

1889 BARRÈRE & LELAND Dict. Slang I. 476/1 Horny, lecherous, in a state of sexual desire, in rut. 1918 Dialect Notes V. 25 Horny, amative. 1949 H. MILLER Sexus (1969) v. 104 Her thick, gurgling voice saying..: ‘Get it in all the way...please, please do... I'm horny.’ Ibid. x. 239 When I look at this thing I get horny again. 1965 J. L. HERLIHY Midnight Cowboy (1966) II. v. 120 You are a gorgeous-lookin' piece, Cass. Gets a guy all horny just lookin' at you. 1968 M. RICHLER Cocksure xi. 63 When..he used to make a habit of watching the hockey games..he always felt horny. 1970 T. LEWIS Jack's Return Home 43 The talk'd got filthier. It'd made me very horny. 1971 Black World Oct. 65/1 Ain't that the horny bitch that was grindin with the blind dude.
------------
and: Auld Hornie: A name for the devil.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Re: horny?

I've never liked the word "horny" to describe the condition of being ripe or green with desire for sex.

I'm curious about the terms that are used in other languages to describe this condition (or that are used as translations of "horny"). How did this term arise? Any suggestions about a substitute metaphor for it in English?

My own preference is to describe it is "swelling and cresting" with desire.

To make someone 'wear horns' or to 'put the horns' to (on) someone meant to make a man a cuckhold. I think this goes back to Chaucer's time and probably farther. It seems to have been pan-European. Horns have always been horny. The horns painted on a shaman in a paleolithic Lascaux cave painting have been interpreted as meaning that he was particularly sexually potent. A lot of the cave paintings were about sex and fecundity.

Cuckhold itself must also relate to 'cuckoo', a bird that lays its eggs in other bids' nests and gets the unsuspecting parents to raise its brood, which is just what happens to someone who's been cuckholded. (I suspect that maybe cock somehow fits into this etymology as well.) In older lit the cuckoo's call is commonly a little joke about someone's being betrayed with another lover.

I don't trust any etymologies of the male organ. I've come across too many words that just seem to have been invented to thing that they have any sort of meaning behind them. Words like pud, whanger, jalona, spud, yosh, etc. These are just invented words that sound good.

---dr. Zoot

 

[Guest]

Mab., you're right about the cuckoo derivation (from Middle English and Old French origins). P.

p.s. my bolding for Gauche.

cuckold
[ME. cukeweld, cokewold (3 syllables), adaptation of an OF. word which appears in 1463 as cucuault, pointing to an earlier *cucuald, f. OF. cucu cuckoo (in 15-17 c. cocu, 16-17th c. coucou, cuckoo and cuckold; mod.F. coucou cuckoo, cocu cuckold, also, dialectally, cuckoo), with the appellative and pejorative suffix -ald, -auld, -ault, -aud = It. -aldo, f. Ger. -wald: see Diez, Gramm. Lang. Rom. (1874) II. 346. (The Sw. dial. kukkuvall is from F.; mod.Icel. kokkáll from English.)
Another OF. synonym was coucuol, couquiol, with dimin. ending, app. from Prov.: cf. OPr. coguiol, mod.Pr. couguieu, couquieu, couguou, cuckoo and cuckold. The current F. equivalent is the simple form cocu. The origin of the sense is supposed to be found in the cuckoo's habit of laying its egg in another bird's nest; in Ger., gauch and kuckuk, and in Pr., cogotz, were applied to the adulterer as well as the husband of the adulteress, and Littré cites an assertion of the same double use in French; in English, where cuckold has never been the name of the bird, we do not find it applied to the adulterer.]

1. A derisive name for the husband of an unfaithful wife.

a1250 Owl & Night. 1544 Heo nah iweld, a heo hine makie cukeweld. 1362 LANGL. P. Pl. A. IV. 140 Hose wilne hire to wyue..Bote he beo A Cokewold I-kore, cut of boe myn Eres. c1386 CHAUCER Miller's Prol. 44 Leue brother Osewold, Who hath no wyf, he is no Cokewold [v.r. coukekukwold]. c1425 Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 651/29 Hic ninarius, cokwalde. c1440 Gesta Rom. xcii. 421 (Add. MS.) Thy false monke hathe a-way my wife, and made me a Cokewolde. 1483 Cath. Angl. 85 To make Cukewalde [A. Cwkwalde], curucare. 1562 J. HEYWOOD Prov. & Epigr. (1867) 105 Is thy husband a cockold. 1590 SPENSER F.Q. III. x. 11 Without regard..of husband old, Whom she hath vow'd to dub a fayre cucquold. 1650 WELDON Crt. Jas. I, 111 Hee was..a Cuckold, having a very pretty wench to his Wife. 1728 YOUNG Love Fame i. Wks. (1757) 81 And the brib'd cuckold..glories in his gilded horn. 1845 FORD Handbk. Spain I. 46 The Spaniards in the sixteenth century mounted unrepining cuckolds..on asses.

 

[NoJo]

Re: Re: horny?

I don't trust any etymologies of the male organ. I've come across too many words that just seem to have been invented to thing that they have any sort of meaning behind them.
---dr. Zoot

Be that as it may, it's pretty well agreed among etymologists that:

1. "DONG" -- from the French man of letters and mathematician Compte Richard D'Ongue, whose theoerms in affine geomtery are still used today. He was unfortunately "emasculated" in a fencing duel in 1825, and died before his greatest potential could be achieved. A cruel cartoon appeared in the british boradsheets at the time : "Monsieur D'ong (sic) meets his end".


2. "WILLY" -- From John Willie, the 19th century Cumbrian boxer who after defeating Dan Mendoza in a forty-five round contest, paraded his impressive member to the appreciative spectators, shouting "okkat hen lads", a phrase whose meaning was apparently as unclear to them as it was to the young etymologist Gordon Stoakes who was in the audience. Stoakes nevertheless wrote later "fortunate indeed is the man at the birth of a new word, however lowly it's parentage." Stoakes spelt the new word "Willie", which, in view of its origins, is probably correct.

 

[Xelebes]

Re: horny?

I've never liked the word "horny" to describe the condition of being ripe or green with desire for sex.

I'm curious about the terms that are used in other languages to describe this condition (or that are used as translations of "horny"). How did this term arise? Any suggestions about a substitute metaphor for it in English?

My own preference is to describe it is "swelling and cresting" with desire.

horny = devilish. Probably arose during the time of the Puritans where they thought that sex outside of marriage was the curse of the devil or something.

True, we need something more modern.

 

[Sappholovers]

fascinate (and the penis)

Diane Ackerman writes in "A Natural History of Love":

"Every time we say the word fascinate we are referring to penises. In Latin, a fascinum was the image of an erect penis tht people worshiped, hung up in the kitchen or bedroom, or wore around the neck as an amulet. Penises were powerful and praiseworthy, and could even ward off the evil eye. In time , anything worth appreciation and study, anything potent and magical, anythng as truly terrific as a penis, was called fascinating."

 

[Sappholovers]

Chaucer: Quaint and Cunt

Trust the poet: Chaucer believed that the word "cunt" derived from the word "quaint," which meant a many-layered infolded mystery.