There's a rather indelicate term of abuse: arse-cheese (or ass-cheese, if you are of the American persuasion). It's not that common, but it does have an entry in the Urban Dictionary. I think it was popular in the 1990s, but has since rather dwindled. Its meaning, both literal and figurative can of course be guessed. I wouldn't normally mention this phrase, but last night I was happily reading a list of Sumerian proverbs, and specifically Ni 5271, which reads, in the transliterated original:
ur5 kisim gu-du-ka
Which translates as:
...smells, cheese of the anus...
It's fragmentary and nobody knows the context, but it seemed astonishing to me that a standard vulgar term of abuse should be among the earliest things ever written down. It's rather like the Tomb of Ti at Saqqara in Egypt, which can be dated to 2,300 BC. It contains a depiction of two fishermen fighting each other. The hieroglyphic caption is usually translated by academics as "Come hither, you copulator."*
As I can't find either a picture of the cuneiform or a picture of the tomb of Ti on the Internet, I shall leave this post unillustrated. Actually, no. I shall add that cuneiform just means "wedge-shaped". Like this:
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Is 'cuneiform' pronounced with three syllables, i.e. rhyming with 'uniform' or with four - cu-NE-i-form? I've heard both.
ReplyDeleteI heard on a Radiolab podcast that there is an ancient rubbish tip in Egypt where such a vast quantity of explicit written material has been found that it is assumed to be the top of the ancient best seller list.
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