| THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016). |
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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. |
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