I love all this under the gooseberry bush -will never be the same-I only
knew about the fruiting version -one learns
My 1811 dictionary says of goose - ataylor's goose a soothing iron -a
bashfull or sheepish fellow (like me) cannot say boh to a goose!
Isn't there a Bush in USA ??
What about the bulldozers they are not pubic ??
Manga P
>
> 'Gooseberry bush' is said to be a euphemism for bush (= pubic hair), but I
> lack a proper citation (Grose, for example, has nothing) and without one I
> am sceptical.
> CW
Jonathon Green, +The Cassell Dictionary of Slang+, has:
gooseberry bush: n1 [19C] the pubic hair (cf. BEAUTY SPOT n3). [ext. of
BUSH n4: it is this bush, of course, rather than the fruiting variety,
beneath which a child is allegedly born]
JG doesn't do cites, but that [19C] sounds pretty definite, and I've usually
found him trustworthy.
Odd that it's not in Beale/Patridge. Roll on the 4 volume revision.
> (who has recently wasted an inordinate amount of time trying to trace the
> origin of 'bulldozer')
More on this tomorrow (or rather, later today), though I doubt if I've found
anything that Christopher and Judy won't already know. If that.
Robin
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