The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.2566  Thursday, 7 November 2001

From:           R. A. Cantrell <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Tuesday, 06 Nov 2001 08:21:02 -0600
Subject: 12.2556 MND, OED, and making love
Comment:        Re: SHK 12.2556 MND, OED, and making love

> OED Love sb(or n)1; 7 g. has in the 1933 ed.:
>
> _To make love_: to pay amorous attention; with _to_ = to
> court, woo.
>
> in the SUPPLEMENT Vol. 2, H-N of 1976:
>
> _to make love_: now more usually, to copulate.  (First quotation is from
> 1950.)
>
> the OED CDROM has:
>
> _to make love_: to pay amorous attention; now more usually, to
> copulate.  (The quotations given combine the 1933 and 1976 edd.)
>
> It seems to me unfortunate that the CDROM omits the definition 'to
> court, woo.'
>
> I haven't checked the newer print edition of the OED.
>
> I believe the first editor of MND to feel a need to comment on this line
> is John Andrews in The Guild Shakespeare ed. of MND and TGV, in 1989:
> "The modern meaning of the phrase is inapplicable here.  Lysander is
> saying that Demetrius wooed Helena with what Egeus would call 'faining
> love' . . ."


Rosencrantz and Guildenstern did "make love to the employment" which I
think would translate in today's vernacular as having "jumped at the
f*&%$ing chance."

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