prick


sorabji.com: Words: prick
By droopy on Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 01:34 am:

    disturbingly, this starts with a conversation with my mother. she called earlier in the day just for the hell of it. toward the end of the conversation she told me was reading a book called "shadow of the wind" by "zephron or zaphron zephyr or something like that. he's spanish." (it turned out to be zaf�n). she had a question for me:

    do you know what entha...entho...enthomology means?

    enthomology? are you sure that's right?

    well, no.

    do you mean entomology?

    maybe! what does that mean?

    shit. i think it's the study of insects.

    no. no. it has to do with words.

    etymology?

    yes! i think that's it. is that about words?

    yeah. you know, like in the dictionary. they always have the etymology part at the end of the definition: "this word is from the latin root blah blah" and all that.

    all right. there's a part in the book where the main character says to someone - a professor of languages - "do you know the ety- am i saying it right? - etymology of the word prick?" you know, meaning he's the prick.

    *

    a little later after that exchange i dug up a book i have called "the dictionary of word origins" to see if it had an entry for "prick". this is what i found:

    "prick is a word of the low german area, which english shares with dutch (prik). its ultimate origins, though, are not known. the earliest record of its use for "p*nis" is from the late 16th century, and in the 16th and 17th centuries women employed it as a term of endearment - a usage that did not go down well in all quarters: "one word alone hath troubled some, because the immodest maid soothing the young man, calls him her pr*ck. he who cannot away with this, instead of "my pr*ck," let him write "my sweetheart." - from "colloquies of erasmus," 1671

    it's a shame people don't do that anymore.

    let me call you my prick
    i'm in love with you...

    i bet those low germans still call their boyfriends "my prick," or whatever the equivalent is in deutch. i've heard them say they love dich.


By Dr Pepper on Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 03:02 am:

    you probably meant to prick the insect with needle to keep it on display......