Talking ex culo

Trevor @ Sunday August 21st 2005 21:46

Re Mark Liberman’s post, I don’t know of any prior examples–the nearest I can think of are C16th Dutch usages like Poortegaal for the smallest room (but speaking Portuguese isn’t, unfortunately, mean speaking crap) and Scythen/Schijten = Scythians/shitting–and Thomas Watson’s “A perjured person is the devil’s excrement” is attractive but too late.

Saint Augustine doesn’t deal with organ substitution, but I think he did originate the theory of organ control having been lost with the Fall, and I believe he applied this notion to the excretiory as well as the sexual organs. He’s also alleged to have called women “vessels of excrement”, but I can’t find any satisfactory source for that either. A Dutch saying advises that “If a cow shits on you, don’t shit back”, but cows can’t talk.


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