The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.0658 Monday, 12 April 1999.
[1] From: Robin Hamilton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Sunday, 11 Apr 1999 00:29:20 +0100
Subj: Re: SHK 10.0639 Re: Biondello
[2] From: Robin Hamilton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Sunday, 11 Apr 1999 00:38:09 +0100
Subj: Re: SHK 10.0639 Re: Biondello
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Robin Hamilton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Sunday, 11 Apr 1999 00:29:20 +0100
Subject: 10.0639 Re: Biondello
Comment: Re: SHK 10.0639 Re: Biondello
"(3) "Get stuffed" is dated only to 1952 by the online OED, however . .
. (if I've searched it right)."
Frank Whigham
Oxford seems (for once) to be out of order on this one. THE OXFORD
DICTIONARY OF SLANG gives (p.276) the 1952 date for "get stuffed" under
'Exclamations of contempt or derision', but also has the unlikely late
date of 1960 under 'To have sex (with), copulate (with)': (p.75): "stuff
(1960) Used transitively, of a male."
THE CASSELL DICTIONARY OF SLANG, ed. Green, gives a (possibly) earlier
date-"get stuffed! excl. [1940s+] a general excl. of dismissal", and
"stuff v 4 [1950+] to have sexual intercourse".
Both dictionary makers could usefully have consulted the inestimable
Eric Partridge, who has, in A DICTIONARY OF HISTORICAL SLANG, the
following resonant definition:
"get stuffed! Oh, run away and 'play trains'!: low: late C.19-20."
Elsewhere in the same dictionary, he notes:
"stuff v 4 (Of man) to copulate with: low late (?mid-) C.19-20. Ex
upholstery. Hence the defiant c.p., +go and get stuffed+."
I'd trust Partidge on the earlier dating on this, and also feel that if
there was the possibility of any earlier +documentation+ of the usage,
Patridge would have come up with it.
Finally, from his DICTIONARY OF THE UNDERWORLD:
"stuffy n. A woman: ca. 1865-1910 ... The semantics may be: she whom
one, in a low s., 'stuffs' or copulates with."
Robin Hamilton.
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Robin Hamilton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Sunday, 11 Apr 1999 00:38:09 +0100
Subject: 10.0639 Re: Biondello
Comment: Re: SHK 10.0639 Re: Biondello
"(2) "Coney" was also a term of erotic endearment, no?"
Frank Whigham
John Skelton, Elynour Rummynge, ll. 225-6, has:
His nobbes and his conny,
His swetyng and his honny ...
Robin Hamilton