"Janet Baraclough" wrote in message
...
The message
from "michael adams" contains these words:



You have no choice but to call things figs or troughs or spades.

Or is the point that figs, troughs, and spades, are euphemisms for
something else ?

Fig certainly is ; it was a vulgar term for female sex organ, at least
500 years ago, in Italian, Spanish and English. "I don't give a fig" did
not refer to fruit, and the modesty "fig leaf" on nudes was a double
entendre.

Spade = black person.

Nowadays yes. But I doubt if that was the case in 1589 when it
was first used in English. That usage came from playing cards
I believe.

In fact I imagine all three were sexual ephemisms.

The "spade" was what you used in the "trough".

The statement - " I call a spade a spade" is rather
paradoxical.

As it should really be "I call the male sexual organ a spade"
- because I use euphemisms.

Which is precisely the opposite of what's being claimed.



michael adams

....








Janet.


--
Isle of Arran Open Gardens weekend 21,22,23 July 2006
5 UKP three-day adult ticket (funds go to island charities) buys entry
to 26 private gardens