Thread
:
Pissing on compost
View Single Post
#
42
09-06-2006, 04:01 PM posted to uk.rec.gardening
Janet Baraclough
Posts: n/a
****ing on compost
The message
from
(Nick Maclaren) contains these words:
In article ,
Janet Baraclough writes:
|
| 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.
If you have references, I suggest passing them on to the OED. There
aren't any references to that use, but there are to some of its
derivations - including the 'fig' gesture, which is obviously
sexual - and it refers to the belief that it had that use in Italian.
Shakespeare used the verbal put-down term " fig me like a Spaniard"
IOW, it wasn't just a rude gesture, "fig" was also a spoken sexual
vulgarity understood by his English audience.
He also had Iago say "Virtue? A fig" , which was undoubtedly another
double entendre
Janet.
Reply With Quote
