Joke Thread 4
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Henniep
Established Member
I also assumed ass referred to that dumb, stubbord equine half-assed donkey. buttocks was something entirely different and much more offensive.
Yorkieguy
Established Member
Yorkieguy
Established Member
I think that in England, ‘ass’ is just a prudish euphemism for @RSE rather like the countless ‘minced oaths’ which abound in everyday English. Both terms were used alongside each in my childhood in the Midlands in the 1940s/50s. A 'minced oath' is a euphemistic expression formed by deliberately misspelling, mispronouncing, or replacing a part of a profane, blasphemous, or taboo word or phrase to reduce the original term's objectionable characteristics.
Many of them go back to Puritan times in the 1500s.
The oath 'struth (By God's truth) came to be spelled strewth.
A euphemism for the ‘C’ word "Berkeley Hunt", was subsequently abbreviated to "berk". The ‘D’ word euphemism ‘Hampton Wick’ subsequently the colloquialism ‘hampton’, as in 'Strewth, look at the size of that horse's ...,'
‘Gadzooks’ used for "By God's hooks" has become archaic.
"Gosh" instead of "God", "heck" instead of "hell", and "tarnation" instead of "damnation" ‘jeepers’ for Jesus, ‘), bejeebers (by Jesus) or ‘jeez’. Cor blimey’ (God blind me).
Minced oath - Wikipedia
The origins of ‘bl**dy’ is widely debated, and still considered an expletive in the UK, but certainly not in Oz, where it’s mostly used as an ‘intensifier’ as in ‘that was a bl**dy fine meal’, or 'a bl**dy awful game', and sometimes what’s linguistically known as a ‘tmesis' - a compound word where it’s inserted between syllables, as in as in "fanbl**dytastic".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody#:~:text=According%20to%20Rawson's%20dictionary%20of,as%20an%20intensifier%20in%20the
Many books and other written works such as Shakespeare have been ‘expurgated’ or ‘Bowdlerised’ to get them published:
Expurgation - Wikipedia
We might think we live in an ‘anything goes’ era now, but we don’t.
In restaurants, café or hotels in the UK, there used to be signs on toilets which said ‘W.C’ (Water Closet), or ‘Ladies/Gentlemen’, or Toilet. As often as not, nowadays it will say ‘Bathroom’ which is nonsense, imported from ‘across the pond’. There isn’t a bath in it and you haven’t gone there to ‘bathe’. I even hear diners ask for ‘the bathroom’ when not too long ago, they mostly said ‘loo’ if they wanted to sound polite. (I don’t know if Aussies still use the word ‘dunny’, which was derived from the ‘dung heap’ - the language of the luckless Brits carted off there. (Not the 'ten pound Poms - the 1800s ones.).
And we know that whole swathes of books have been swept off library shelves because self-appointed ‘guardians of taste’ think they ought not to be there..
'Ass' or ar*se is a rather unimaginative word to use when there as so many other colloquialisms available to us in our rich English lexicon - some less polite than others:
Stupid and silly people - SMART Vocabulary cloud with related words and phrases
Gadzooks - enough already! I'll sit back and wait for the first censorial post which says: 'what's this doing in a joke thread?' There'll be one along shortly.
Waffled and dribbled Yorkieguy.
John Brown
Freeloading Social media influenza
The Berkeley Hunt killed and took away our geriatric sheep last year to feed the hounds. Still had to pay for the privilege...Berks.
As for "bathroom", it's no worse than toilet or lavatory, all euphemisms. Restroom is ridiculous, though!
We had an outside bog when I was very young. I think I must have misheard someone because apparently I always referred to it as the "shedhouse".
John Brown
Freeloading Social media influenza
John Brown
Freeloading Social media influenza
There's a man who attends the same cardio rehab as I do, who wears an "Old guys rule" t shirt with the slogan "shed happens".
We had an outside big as well, in addition to the one in the bathroom (in the proper sense of the word), it was cold and full of spiders, but invaluable in a household with four kids.
John Brown
Freeloading Social media influenza
Having had heart surgery, it's more akin to them lending you a vehicle while they fix yours. Your cardio pulmonary functions are delegated to machinery while they sort yours out.
No complaints here found it interesting thank you
Robbo3
Established Member
Blackswanwood
Still Learning
Doug B
Shy Tot
stuart little
Established Member
Is it true that an apple a day keeps the doctor away, or is it just one of Granny's myths?
I love taking pictures of myself standing next to a boiling kettle.
The doctor says I've got selfie steam issues.
I love taking pictures of myself standing next to a boiling kettle.
The doctor says I've got selfie steam issues.
My dad, a Geordie, always used to call it the "netty". If there was a river at the bottom of the garden, the netty was sometimes built to use the natural flushing effect.
While on that subject, here is the tale of Geordie Washington, as told to me by my dad when money was worth something. Apologies in advance to real history, whatever that might be.
Please excuse the lack of a proper accent - this tale should be told in a strong geordie accent. But I had that kicked out of me at school when I was little, when we had to move down South so my dad could get a job.
*
One day Geordie Washington's dad went up to him and said:
Dad: Hello son, did you push our netty into the river?
Geordie: No father, it wasn't me.
D: Before I ask you again son, let me tell you the tale of Georgie Washington. One day his father asked him if he had chopped down their cherry tree. He said "father, I cannot tell a lie. It was me". Georgie's father was so pleased that he told him the truth, he gave him half a crown. [ equivalent now to 12.5p, a very big deal in those days ]. So I'll ask you again son. Did you push our netty into the river?
G: Father, I cannot tell a lie. it was me.
At this, Geordie Washington's dad took off his leather belt, put Geordie over his knee and gave poor Geordie a good hiding.
G: [sobbing between the strikes] But father, Georgie's dad gave him half a crown.
D: Aye son, but he wasn't sitting in the tree at the time!
Alex H
Established Member
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