The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 16.0182 Friday, 28 January 2005
[1] From: Robin Hamilton <
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Date: Thursday, 27 Jan 2005 13:10:12 -0000
Subj: Re: SHK 16.0166 Lark
[2] From: Marvin Krims <
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Date: Thursday, 27 Jan 2005 10:08:35 -0500
Subj: RE: SHK 16.0166 Lark
[3] From: Larry Weiss <
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Date: Thursday, 27 Jan 2005 15:29:07 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 16.0166 Lark
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Robin Hamilton <
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Date: Thursday, 27 Jan 2005 13:10:12 -0000
Subject: 16.0166 Lark
Comment: Re: SHK 16.0166 Lark
Abigail Quart <
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>According to Richard A. Spears' dictionary of Slang and Euphemism, "to
>lark" is "to masturbate; to practise penilingus." But "larking" is
>defined as "irumation" which is "to suck" leading to a possible meaning
>of fellatio and/or cunnilingus.
Eric Partridge, _A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English_, ed.
Beale (1984) fails to give this as a sense of LARK (v) but
cross-refers to LARKING (n) Cunnilingism: low: C.18-19 (?20) -- i.e
there are no instances of the use of this as a sexual term in a verbal
form, and it is first noted well after Shakespeare.
>Frankie Rubinstein's A Dictionary of Shakespeare's Sexual Puns and Their
>Significance defines "lark," the noun, as "prostitute."
This sense isn't noted in Partridge.
In the OED2(3), LARK (n2) "a frolicsome adventure [etc.]" is first cited
in 1811 and LARK (v2) "To play tricks [etc.]" in 1813.
While Partridge paces the origin of the term lark = joke (around)
slightly earlier than the OED, both suggest that this sense of the term
only emerges in the late 18th/early 19thC.
While dictionaries aren't infallible, it seems to me highly implausible
that if "lark" could mean jape (and presumably only later take on a
sexual dimension) there should be no *recorded* instances of this before
1800 -- roughly two hundred years after Shakespeare. That's a long
stretch of silence.
For Shakespeare and his contemporaries, your only lark was a bird.
Robin Hamilton
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Marvin Krims <
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Date: Thursday, 27 Jan 2005 10:08:35 -0500
Subject: 16.0166 Lark
Comment: RE: SHK 16.0166 Lark
Reminds me of Sonnet #129: All this the world well knows; yet none none
knows well
To shun the heaven
that leads men to this hell.
Marvin Krims
[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Larry Weiss <
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Date: Thursday, 27 Jan 2005 15:29:07 -0500
Subject: 16.0166 Lark
Comment: Re: SHK 16.0166 Lark
Don't forget the couplet in Son 129:
..................................yet none knows well
to shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
It is commonplace that "Hell" was slang for vagina and Heaven probably
represented orgasmic bliss.
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