Ah Mark, we are of an age. Whilst I was being an eternal child in those very
same years, the game amongst my friends (so-say ladylike, single sex school
as it was) was to trick me into the innocent use of some term which *they
knew had a bawdy under-meaning, so they could giggle and nudge each other.
There was one song, I remember, where the rude words were replaced by
rhymes -- it took me years, quite literally, to work all of that one out.
(But I got it in the end!) I'm still fascinated by such secondary meanings,
but what I long to know is how such things came about. I mean, they aren't
all obvious puns or metaphors.

joanna

----- Original Message -----
From: "MJ Walker" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2005 12:28 AM
Subject: Re: Lawrence Upton's Letters and Postcards


That word has no right to exist anyway, like "shag", which was during my
childhood (think mid-40s to late 50s, childhood went on forever in those
days) the most uncouth sniggery expression around. I am an unregenerate
snob about words for sexual congress. German has "bumsen", rather like
"bonk" - what they do in Bavarian soft pornos with dirndls - and
"vögeln", which is something determinedly guiltless & sportive you do by
rotation in a commune, until they got pc in the 70s & preferred
non-penetrative frotting. I like "screw", my wife said it with a
delightful Hampshire accent & the Berryman story is great if one
imagines him wheezing that line out in the cinema during the performance
of *Camelot*. The common French word is the word I learnt at school for
"kiss", "baiser", so you can't say "Küss die Hand, Madame" with a simple
verb & the German word for "meringue" is a no-no at the pâtisserie: "I
want a fuck madame." My partner said it some years back now & got a
funny look.
Late night musings of a DOM.
mj

Joanna Boulter wrote:

> Oh, for heaven's sake, you *did* mean it!
>
> My sister was once accosted in a London street by a man who said merely -
> 'Bonk'. She said -'I beg your pardon?' and he said it again. In the end
> she twigged that he might be trying for 'bank' with a French accent, which
> turned out to be the case. I've always told my kids that the first words
> you should learn in any language are 'please' and 'thank you'!
>
> joanna
>
>> Martin wrote:
>
>
>> I said half Koaxx (my little joke, work it out) for French; I don't
>> consider my French to be good enough - I can't translate litrachur into
>> it, for instance, and I'm lost when they gabble. Funnily enough, I seem
>> to understand Swiss German (Schwyzerdütsch) better than Germans, who get
>> it subtitled on TV even when a clearspoken academic is talking - while I
>> can understand very little spoken by drunken maudlin roughs from Glasgow;
>> I lived next to one once in council housing (municipal lowrent slums for
>> the benefit of our Yankee friends) & he would beat up his wife all night
>> when he got back from the pub. 'Twas no human tongue that issued forth
>> from that benighted hovel.
>> mj
>
>

--
Flow My Tears is a novel of nonstop intrigue set sometime in the future of
an alternate reality. It has a great ending and really makes you think
about life and similar things. - Online review by Keith.