Monday 19 March 2012

Dicked in the Nob


Gay Copenhagen vintage 1950s travel poster
It's always rather amusing when a word once blameless now has a rude meaning, and a double example of this is dicked in the nob, which once meant silly. Nob used to mean head in C18th thieves slang and dicked... well dicked is a bit obscure, but the first recorded use of it to mean penis wasn't until a slang dictionary of 1891.

What we might now call a dick was, back in the C18th, sometimes referred to as a man's gaying instrument, where gaying meant happy-making.

I think I should stop there, only noting that, according to William Holloway's General Dictionary of Provincialisms, in early Victorian Yorkshire an ass-hole was an ash-hole.

4 comments:

  1. I've nominated you for the Versatile Blogger Award

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  2. Mr Forsyth you have excelled yourself.!

    Reminds me of the scene in Monty Pythons "Life of Brian". Lots of happy making going on there..

    "I have a very gweat fwend in Wome called Biggus Dickus"

    "Does anyone else feel like a little giggle when I mention my fwend, Biggus, Dickus"

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atBdNHGxEEY&feature=player_detailpage#t=174s

    P.S. I second the "Versatile Blogger Award"

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  3. It might be a bit confusing to be called an 'ash-hole' by Sean Connery....

    Laurie -

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  4. I just ran across this phrase in a regency era romance novel and couldn't wait to see what it would have meant then. I appreciate your explanation as well as your well timed end to it. It was enlightening and amusing.

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