tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2629301231907528990.post8201660119812146686..comments2024-03-26T18:01:57.609+00:00Comments on Inky Fool: Harlots, Wenches, Strumpets, Whores And Fun Days Out In MertonM.H. Forsythhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01464964455944509750noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2629301231907528990.post-12410125478323586312010-05-14T16:47:49.921+01:002010-05-14T16:47:49.921+01:00Pestle and Mortar always sounds to me like a comed...Pestle and Mortar always sounds to me like a comedy duo or perhaps a shop on Bond Street.<br />@John Cowan. I see what you mean. You're suggesting an original word cynth that dropped the N when it was imported from Germany and ended up meaning familiarity. The word would then have dropped the h in German before being imported again with the modern meaning (in the same way that chef got imported from French twice as chief and chef with a different meaning each time). <br />It might well be true. The one sticking point would be that the only known cognate appears to be O.N. kunta with the plosive t rather than the fricative th. But that doesn't detract from the possibility, merely makes it harder to prove.M.H. Forsythhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01464964455944509750noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2629301231907528990.post-39628409173521854032010-05-13T22:02:16.326+01:002010-05-13T22:02:16.326+01:00Dogberry - you may have assumed my mortar and pest...Dogberry - you may have assumed my mortar and pestle had been transposed inadvertently. <br /><br />Not so! <br /><br />(Given the diagram the outraged correspondent supplied.)Moptophttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03043271018134053860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2629301231907528990.post-29675710393116644532010-05-13T17:09:54.438+01:002010-05-13T17:09:54.438+01:00I wonder if this cyþþe is distantly related to cun...I wonder if this <i>cyþþe</i> is distantly related to <i>cunt</i>, which cannot be a native word because of the Ingvaeonic Nasal Spirant Law, and must be borrowed from some Germanic language that was unaffected.John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2629301231907528990.post-63839203153175924012010-05-12T15:18:34.291+01:002010-05-12T15:18:34.291+01:00Beautiful.Beautiful.M.H. Forsythhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01464964455944509750noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2629301231907528990.post-24710017959464668062010-05-12T15:05:32.654+01:002010-05-12T15:05:32.654+01:00As requested:
There once was a girl named Miss Lu...As requested:<br /><br />There once was a girl named Miss Lumpet<br />Who was quite the well-skilled young strumpet.<br />Her johns all have sworn<br />That she blew such good horn<br />That they wailed like a Marsalis trumpet.Andy Hollandbeckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11005908016945472261noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2629301231907528990.post-24143247862508723252010-05-12T13:15:17.130+01:002010-05-12T13:15:17.130+01:00O dear.
I've told a Young Scholar, who wante...O dear. <br /><br />I've told a Young Scholar, who wanted to be assured that he wouldn't encounter any bad language over the course of his degree, that fuck was actually a culinary term ...Moptophttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03043271018134053860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2629301231907528990.post-77887679889266796762010-05-12T13:11:04.063+01:002010-05-12T13:11:04.063+01:00No. People disagree wildly about what the first re...No. People disagree wildly about what the first reference to fuck is. The only Anglo-Saxon reference is to a place called Fuccerham, which some scholars tenuously suggest was full of fuckers. This is unlikely.<br /><br />A fifteenth century poem called Flen Flyys is the first actual example, and in it the word fuck means exactly what it does now. (Unless you can think of another sin monks might commit with the wives of Ely).<br /><br />There are cognates in Scandinavian languages so the word was probably around in Anglo-Saxon but never written and I've never heard of any connection to pestles and mortars.<br /><br />I would love to have seen the one armed man up that ladder. A friend once told me, I think correctly, that comedy was a one-legged man at an arse-kicking contest.M.H. Forsythhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01464964455944509750noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2629301231907528990.post-2871820816288502412010-05-12T12:44:07.366+01:002010-05-12T12:44:07.366+01:00I have an eight page handwritten letter of complai...I have an eight page handwritten letter of complaint (I collect them) in which a very cross woman complains about the state of her gutters after they had allegedly been cleaned by a man with one arm who had trouble hanging on to his ladder. (This all happened in Yorkshire - where else?)<br /><br />When the one-armed man allegedly told the complaining woman to 'Fuck Off' she digresses into a tangent about how the verb fuck derives from the Anglo Saxon meaning 'to pound as in a mortar in a pestle'.<br /><br />Is this correct?Moptophttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03043271018134053860noreply@blogger.com