10 Words You Didn’t Know Used to Be Dirty

We chortle today at the act of “ ejaculations ” in Sherlock Holmes tale , and express joy at how old newspaper stories describe the “ erecting ” of skyscraper . But previous generations would snicker just as hard at us . A flavour at archaic slang shows that we say a lot of very implicative thing without eff it .

Here are ten terms that were once quite ill-gotten , and are now mostly harmless .

10. Earnest

This is going to be the most controversial entry on the list . The Importance of Being Earnest is Oscar Wilde ’s most pop maneuver . Wilde was prosecute and incarcerate for gayness soon after the free rein came out . Since then , in literary circles , it has been whispered that “ earnest ” or “ ernest ” was a computer code discussion for homosexuality . The whisper compound , claiming that “ Cecily , ” the name of one of the character , was slang for a young male tart , and “ bunburying , ” the act of inventing a macabre friend so one could get out of social obligations , was a sly reference to gay sex . All of these claims are hotly gainsay by many , including two of the actors who acted in the original play . They foretell it nonsense . On the other handwriting some mass have found suggestive cite to “ Earnist , ” in 19th century documents . The major piece of music of evidence in favor of the cheeky rendering of the name comes from a classmate of Wilde ’s . John Gambril Nicholson was at Oxford with Wilde , and towards the ending of the century came out with a book of homosexual love poetry called Love in Earnest . You decide if Wilde was going for a double meaning .

9. Occupy

Here ’s another countersign that was n’t formally a sexually suggestive Bible but definitely had a sexual connotation . Once upon a time masses would use “ occupy ” the same way people today utilise “ penetrate ” or “ enter . ” The praxis started in the fifteenth century and became so irksome that , by the seventeenth one C multitude had stopped using the password “ occupy ” in nonsexual situation . No one can be sure when just the Christian Bible was redeemed and impart back into normal function . Suffice it to say , if you transported a load of sixteenth century tyke to an Occupy Wall Street exchange , there would be a lot of toothless , plague - depend on giggling .

take Image : David Shankbone

8. Nunnery

“ Get thee to a nunnery ! Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners ? ” That ’s what Hamlet says to Ophelia during one of his all - too - frequent bouts of being a jerk . He was being even more of one than usual with that turn of phrasal idiom because , as everyone in Shakespeare ’s time knew , there were two significance to the word “ nunnery . ” It could either be a convent or a brothel . Either way , Hamlet could have just distinguish Ophelia that he needed some space and refrained from offering her career advice .

7. Token

All the modern Clarence Shepard Day Jr. yokel who spent the last few decades scrambling for video plot token , and who thought they were being cultured when they offer their lover a “ token of their tenderness , ” would inspire a lot of derisive laughter from the people of 1811 . In those days , according to Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue ( which itself sounds like it could be muddied slang ) a “ tokenish ” intend a genital disease . When syphilis was being passed around like great deal , the trendy fashion to refer to its passage from one person to another was to say , “ he tipped her a token . ”

6. Scumbag

Here ’s a Scripture that , today , sounds almost bathetic . It ’s satisfactory to put it on children ’s shows . But put it in the New York Times crossword puzzle mystifier , as the staff of the Times did in 2006 , and you ’ll get complaints . Adults do the crossword puzzle . Some grownup who do the puzzler were alive in 1939 . In 1939 , a “ scumbag ” was slang for a condom – typically a used safety . The fact that , for most of the universe , scum has become innocent again does n’t shake loose that association for those who grew up with the slang . Historically speaking , trash and scumbags , seem to have worked their way into and out of being muddied . They were originally used , just as they are used today , to draw the froth and jetsam that gather on water system . How condom got in the mix is anyone ’s guess .

5. Hat

I had originally not intended to use slang terms for genitalia , because as we see from this old entry , everything was once used as slang for genitalia . I could n’t refuse this one . In the 1700s , a “ chapeau ” was the term used to describe the genitalia of a “ escaped ” woman . Why ? Because it was “ frequently felt . ” Let me give a slow gonorrhoea to that account . Well done , people of the 1700s . Very well done .

Two Timelines of Slang for Genitalia , from 1250 Through Today

4. Berk

Here ’s one that ’s so innocent nowadays that it made it into the pages of a Harry Potter book . In his verbal description of Elphias Doge , Dumbledore says , “ That old berk . imagine the sun shine out of my sidekick ’s every opening , he did . ” The word “ berk ” is rhyming slang . Expanded it means , “ Berkeley Hunt , ” which rhymes with “ cunt . ” Oh , Dumbledore . For disgrace . ( Important Note : I have been recount that Dumbledore ’s brother said that . What a relief to know the saintlike fountainhead of Hogwarts does n’t use that language ! )

3. Feet

allow ’s get scriptural , people . In the Bible there are several rummy reference to feet . A man goes into a cave and uncovers his foot . A woman become to a sleeping man and uncovers his foot . Other multitude cover their feet and are caught doing it . foot and their relative levels of coverage are n’t really of so much concern to the writers of the Bible . The “ foot ” were used to stick out in – and yes , that is a calculated wordplay – for the general lower one-half of the body . “ cover the understructure ” was used then the mode “ going to the powder elbow room ” is used today . citizenry wore tunics and when they squatted their feet were covered . “ unveil the feet , ” meant flip over up the lower garments , which in turn have in mind that something significant was going on with the lower half of the body .

2. Bread and Butter

Notice how buttered bread slices kind of slide around on top of one another ? Guess what that remind some hoi polloi of , all the direction back in the 1800s . Even in open - face sandwich the bread and butter were right on top of each other in what citizenry considered a very suggestive fashion . name the modern - day phrase “ earning your bread and butter ” pretty dirty . ( Note : citizenry of the same era debate the phrase “ cave in a gullible gown ” to be indicatory as well . The easiest way to make someone ’s gown greenish is to to give it grass stain . )

1. Fascinate

Sometimes when you want to get dirty , you have to direct to Rome . A fascinus was a piffling penis charm that the Romansused to carry around and use in their various spiritual ceremonies . Sometimes they decided to work magic with the fascinus , and practice a kind of sorcery call up fascinare . It ’s this watchword , fascinare , that you ’ll in the main see when you look up the etymology of the word fascinate . “ Fascinare ” is usually translated as “ ensorcell ” or “ enchant . ” It ’s actually something more along the lines of “ to hypnotize someone with your penis magic , which is done using your big metal erect penis charm . ”

The Lost City of Pompeii : Pictures of an Alien World , freeze in metre

[ Via , Slate , The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue , A to Z Guide to Street Slang From the 1700s , The Vital Importance of Being Gay , Online Etymology Dictionary . ]

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