Piranha
Jul 31 2003, 08:40 PM
So, there I was, sitting on the toilet/can/throne* (note: when throwing up after too much alcohol, this item of bathroomware is referred to as The Porcelain Bus) wondering why it was that we need to invent other names for things - especially things that involve bodily discharge, genitalia and associated verbs and nouns and parts of speech. I'm sure it's not just to empower the creation of The Vagina Monologues, which would have been so much less worthy if called the Twat Monologues....but you see where I'm going with this.
Share you euphemisms. Whaddaya call it, and why.
NatCat
Aug 3 2003, 08:29 PM
I'm a huge fan of euphemisms, so much fun can be had with them. "See a man about a dog" or "Water the horses" are 2 of my personal favourites as an alternative to saying that you are going to the bathroom.
Piranha mentioned the porcelain bus, but another one is "talking on the white telephone". I think we'll all agree that's pretty classy.
I guess Cockney rhyming slang is used a lot too.
Piranha
Aug 3 2003, 09:13 PM
QUOTE (NatCat @ Aug 4 2003, 11:29 AM)
"See a man about a dog" or "Water the horses" are 2 of my personal favourites as an alternative to saying that you are going to the bathroom.
My grandfather used to say "see a man about a dog" rather a lot - but for him, it meant "going to the club, be home later, possibly even sober!" Going to the toilet (or "the toot", as my grandparents call it) can also be "draining the lizard."
Ambrose's Auntie
Aug 3 2003, 10:28 PM
A guy I used to work with called going to the toilet "going to do something nobody else can do for me."
libbylou
Aug 3 2003, 11:10 PM
Little girls room is one I often use.
Actually, this could get particularly interest topic because there are euphemisms for just about everything.
Let me see, ahh yes, what are your euphemisms for sex?
Ambrose's Auntie
Aug 3 2003, 11:14 PM
There is, of course, the defenderman-inspired "sleep."
jenelope
Aug 4 2003, 11:07 AM
In college, I worked in an office where the nearest restroom was in the theatre lobby, down the hall. So to this day, when I'm trying to be polite, I refer to leaving to use the restroom as "going down the hall." When I'm not being polite, I just say that I have to pee.
NatCat
Aug 4 2003, 08:40 PM
Sex definately does have it's fair share of euphemisms. Depending on how crass the conversation is they can range from "it" to "I'd do him". I tend to err on the side of crassness.
Piranha
Aug 4 2003, 09:14 PM
QUOTE (NatCat @ Aug 5 2003, 11:40 AM)
I tend to err on the side of crassness.
Well, that's not true.
But then again, there was that NYFD Calendar.....
Back to the other thing: I have an ex-flatmate and dear friend who used to call it "squirty"... as in "Squirty Time!" May I just say, when trilled happily at a Hilton Cabaret Show, this announcement had my client Lou Rawls was dumbstruck, to say the least.
Sex. I love the expression "the wild thing", as in "You did The Wild Thing with Susannah????"
QUOTE (Piranha @ Aug 5 2003, 12:14 PM)
Sex. I love the expression "the wild thing", as in "You did The Wild Thing with Susannah????"
Someone did the wild thing with trifling_matter????
Hee.
scully
Aug 4 2003, 09:35 PM
QUOTE
But then again, there was that NYFD Calendar.....
Mmmm. Can I safely assume I speak for many when I say I can think of all kinds of crassness (not to mention euphemisms aplenty) where firemen are involved..?
Piranha
Aug 4 2003, 11:21 PM
The calendar in question made its debut in my loungeroom, and I can safely say that the paint on the walls blistered from the innuendo that was flying.
libbylou
Aug 4 2003, 11:25 PM
Ahhh. Good times.
My mother was mighty impressed with that calendar. NatCat, you have good taste.
Pandrea
Aug 5 2003, 04:37 AM
Two words:
Turkey time.
Ugh
Heatherbelle
Aug 5 2003, 04:43 AM
shudder
My mother uses the expression 'calling for my long lost brother(Hughie)' as an expression. or the other brother, Ralph.
You know, I always wondered where the expression 'shag' came from
scully
Aug 5 2003, 12:57 PM
Hee. I dunno, but I do know it's one of my favourite words. Makes me giggle. Hmm. Maybe because of the word's other definition, i.e. type of hair or carpeting?
ETA: Turkey time? Are we still on the subject of the loo, or is this about sex? Guh, either way, though.
Piranha
Aug 5 2003, 04:08 PM
QUOTE (Heatherbelle @ Aug 5 2003, 07:43 PM)
You know, I always wondered where the expression 'shag' came from.
Heee. I always wondered whether the word 'shag' (for sex) was related to shag-pile carpet. I assume it is, but which came first?
ejg25
Aug 5 2003, 04:59 PM
I poked about a bit, and all that came up concretely was that it's of 20th century origin, origin unknown. I'm thinking it evolved from this meaning
QUOTE
Main Entry: shag
Function: intransitive verb
Inflected Form(s): shagged; shag·ging
Etymology: variant of shog
Date: 1914
1 : to move or lope along
2 : to dance the shag
Which I love, just because I can now think, "He and I shog the night away."
Khari
Aug 5 2003, 05:34 PM
From
this website:
QUOTE
Its origins are obscure. It’s first recorded by Francis Grose in his Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue of 1785. It’s thought by some to derive from an older sense of the verb that meant to shake about. We don’t know where that came from, either, though it’s probably connected to shake. This meaning fits the later one very well and it’s similar to the way that frig evolved (incidentally, a word whose constituency is pretty much the inverse of shag, being much better known in America than in Britain): at first this meant to move back and forth and then later evolved senses like to copulate and to masturbate. In the nineteenth century, shag was considered very vulgar in Britain and examples in print are rare (perhaps the best known is from that invaluable Victorian word fount, lexicographically speaking, the porno newsletter Pearl). The noun, for an act of copulation, dates only from the 1930s.
Pandrea
Aug 5 2003, 05:39 PM
For turkey time, see the Beniffer thread ...
My Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang has:
QUOTE
1788- ...Origin uncertain; perh. from obs.shag to shake, waggle.
ejg25
Aug 5 2003, 06:03 PM
Interestingly, we no longer have "frig"; we just have "frigging." And I never associated it with sex. It's a milder "fucking" substitute... I mean, a milder substitute for "fucking."
This conversation is what would have happened had Jay Mewes become a linguist.
Pandrea
Aug 5 2003, 06:04 PM
I associate it with the Sex Pistols song about rigging ...
ejg25
Aug 5 2003, 06:05 PM
Frigging in the rigging? Is it about pirates?
Heatherbelle
Aug 6 2003, 04:00 AM
QUOTE (ejg25 @ Aug 5 2003, 10:59 PM)
Which I love, just because I can now think, "He and I shog the night away."
I just sat here sniggering at my desk. My collegue next to be rolled her eyes when I told her why...
She know my insane sense of humor and maturity level of a 5 year old
Pandrea
Aug 6 2003, 04:47 AM
QUOTE
Frigging in the rigging? Is it about pirates?
Yeah, pretty much. And now it's going to be going round my head when I see
Pirates Of The Caribbean ...
Veda
Aug 7 2003, 08:50 AM
QUOTE (NatCat @ Aug 3 2003, 09:29 PM)
I'm a huge fan of euphemisms, so much fun can be had with them. "See a man about a dog" or "Water the horses" are 2 of my personal favourites as an alternative to saying that you are going to the bathroom.
It's funny. I hadn't heard this expression before, but since you posted this I have heard it twice on
Dharma & Greg reruns. They actually used "see a man about a horse" but same concept.
It's always weird how when you hear something new once, you start hearing it everywhere.
JHeaton
Aug 8 2003, 10:33 AM
My friend Lori and I say that we're going to see Taye Diggs when we need to hit the head. See, Lori has an original cast poster from Rent hanging in her downstairs powder room. Taye Diggs was in the original cast of Rent, and thus one sees him every time you use that toilet. As to why we say Taye Diggs instead of, say, Jesse L. Martin or Anthony Rapp, it's not worth getting into. But there is a reason.
ejg25
Aug 8 2003, 11:25 AM
Because he's very fine?
Mirren
Aug 11 2003, 08:00 AM
QUOTE
"See a man about a dog" or "Water the horses" are 2 of my personal favourites as an alternative to saying that you are going to the bathroom.
That's odd, because I've always taken "see a man about a dog" to mean "off to buy some dope".
The euphemisms I still smile over are restroom/ washroom/ bathroom to mean what I would call the toilet. I've just about educated myself to ask for the "washroom" in North American restaurants - I guess that "I'm just off to the toilet" sounds like "I'm going to take a piss" to N American ears.
My
least favourite euphemism for sex is "bonking". It's so 80s and coy, I just cringe whenever I hear it (thankfully rarely, these days).
scully
Aug 11 2003, 01:49 PM
You know, now that I think about it, it never occurred to me that "see a man about a dog/horse" was a bathroom (heh) reference. It always seemed to me that whenever someone said it, they were wanting to leave what was a seemingly awkward situation. Like, it was standard excuse when you wanted to be excused but didn't have a legitimate reason (beyond really wanting to be somewhere that was else).
Huh.
Pandrea
Aug 11 2003, 04:15 PM
Urgh, bonking is horrible (though bonkbuster is funny).
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