| Thursday, February 23, 2006 |
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oh, beautiful etymology |
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I marvel at the English language. How does "skinny" not mean "having an excess of skin"?Did it come from someone who had lost LOTS of weight, then they had all this skin that was dragging and so they became known as "skinny" , which someone later turned in to "being really thin"? And did you know that "cock" come from old english as a diminutive suffix for names? So Hitch's son was Hitchcock. It is then easy for me to translate this diminutive connotation to explain why one's member is referred to as a cock in some circles. Alas, I assume incorrectly, as cock/penis comes from pillicock. And read on to learn more: pillock n. Idiot. You could almost decide having read this dictionary that any unknown British word is most likely to mean "idiot". And you could almost be right. We have so many because different ones sound better in different sentences. On the subject of the word in hand, I am told by a contributor that it's a contraction of the 16th century word "pillicock" (describing the male member) and by another (who admits to not being completely sure) that this may be a male animal with one lone testicle and derived from "bullock". It's funny, even if it's not true... (from English2american.com)
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| posted by Rosie @ 2/23/2006 10:41:00 AM |
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