I've got yer credentials right here.
July 31, 2016 8:49 AM   Subscribe



 
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posted by GenjiandProust at 8:55 AM on July 31, 2016 [2 favorites]


I want to know the origins of "Mrs. Fubb's Parlor".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:04 AM on July 31, 2016 [7 favorites]


Well, when a silent flute and a fancy article love one another very much...
posted by idiopath at 9:08 AM on July 31, 2016


There are many, many Mount Pleasants in Utah, but only one of them is a town.
posted by Oyéah at 9:13 AM on July 31, 2016


I had to double check the Mrs Fubb's one, because the non-U spelling of 'parlour' made me suspicious.
Found an older-than-credited-here reference (1825) to 'Mrs Fubb's Front Parlour', where 'Mrs Fubbs' seems to be a more general term for ladies of easy virtue. not sure who Tom Rees is - looks like to source of a fair bit of slang, either apocryphal or real turf agent, coffee house owner, landlord?
posted by AFII at 9:19 AM on July 31, 2016 [3 favorites]


According to John Badcock's (no comment) Slang; a dictionary of the turf, the ring, the chase, the pit, of bon-ton, and the varieties of life, forming the compleat Lexicon balatronicum interspersed with anecdotes and whimsies, Tom Rees was a member of the Eccentric Club, whose meetings were held at "at Tom Rees's, in May's-buildings, St. Martin's-lane, circa 1800."
posted by Lorin at 9:23 AM on July 31, 2016 [1 favorite]


I heard Mr. John Goodfellow went to the Netherlands...
posted by sexyrobot at 9:24 AM on July 31, 2016 [3 favorites]


I have to admit "Would you like to check my credentials" is a clever pick-up line.
posted by oddman at 9:32 AM on July 31, 2016 [9 favorites]


Antipodes is hilarious. The "land down under" indeed.
posted by Hermione Granger at 9:44 AM on July 31, 2016 [2 favorites]


Also The Low Countries.
posted by apricot at 9:49 AM on July 31, 2016


I think the list and timeline are missing "ling" (or lingcod) as slang for vagina. It's best illustrated by this early 18th century music-hall song about a woman trying to remember what kind of fish she was supposed to buy:
At last, quite impatient, the girl said, "my swell,
Do you think you could guess the right fish by the smell?"
"O yes, that I could," said the man, "my sweet maid,
Cause I know all the arts and the rigs of my trade."
Tolderol, &c.

Then the girl shoved her hand 'neath her clothes in a shot,
And rubbed it about on a certain sweet spot;
Then, blushing so sweetly, as you may suppose,
She put her hand up to the fishmonger's nose.
Tolderol, &c.

The fishmonger smelt it, and cried, with delight,
"I know what you want, by the smell, now, all right,
''Twas a good thought of yours, recollection to bring;
I'll tell you directly -- you wanted some ling "
Tolderol, &c.
Don't thank me, thank the book Bawdy Songs of the Early Music Hall .
posted by teponaztli at 9:54 AM on July 31, 2016 [3 favorites]


Eh, this is much ado about nothing.
posted by I-baLL at 10:21 AM on July 31, 2016 [3 favorites]


I just call it beatin' around the bush
posted by middleclasstool at 10:22 AM on July 31, 2016


Damn, when did we stop coming up with great nicknames for the ladies' low toupee and start spending all our energy on the gentleman usher??
posted by little onion at 10:26 AM on July 31, 2016


when did we stop coming up with great nicknames for the ladies' low toupee and spend all our energy on the gentleman usher!
posted by little onion


eponironic?
posted by zippy at 10:27 AM on July 31, 2016 [3 favorites]


Favoriting a comment
Flagging as fantastic
Flagging as other
Requesting a Pony
Take it to MeTa
Posting an FPP
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:27 AM on July 31, 2016 [10 favorites]


Present your credentials to the privy-counsel.
posted by ckape at 10:38 AM on July 31, 2016 [2 favorites]


eponironic?

Good question, in the right bawdy context, it could certainly pass for a Cyprian scepter.
posted by little onion at 10:39 AM on July 31, 2016 [1 favorite]


Oh. We rather thought we'd come up with The Netherlands. :-(
posted by Artw at 10:48 AM on July 31, 2016


I've been working at the local Shakespeare festival and have now seen The Comedy of Errors 4 times in a week. It definitely contains a Netherlands joke.
posted by interplanetjanet at 10:51 AM on July 31, 2016 [3 favorites]


Although I'm not partial to lady's low toupee, I do like the name. Thatched cottage also made me laugh.
posted by Conrad-Casserole at 10:53 AM on July 31, 2016


I don't get many chances to share this story.

So, my grandmother writes* books. Dirty books. "Romance novels" but more accurately the bodice rippers (her term, not mine) that were popular on drugstore shelves and as ebooks in the days before 50 Shades.

About ten or fifteen years ago I was minding my own business mucking around on the computer when my phone rang. From the call display I could tell it was grandma.

Me: Hi grandma!
Grandma: Hi! I have a question for you.
Me: Uh, of course. *thinks grandma isn't usually so too the point so something must be bugging her*
Grandma: Ok. What do men of your generation call an erection?
Me: *dies of mortification*

I'm now going to email her this list.

* wrote. She is very much still kicking at 95, but doesn't write anymore.
posted by generichuman at 11:43 AM on July 31, 2016 [22 favorites]


This is reminding me -

Lo these many years ago, I stage-managed a show with a lot of 18th-Century-inspired music in it, and the cast also decided to do a little onstage jam session as the audience was walking in too. One of the songs they picked to do was My Thing Is My Own, which in theory is about a young woman listing all the times she's had to dodge guys getting her to put out because she wants to stay a virgin. But really, what it is is an excuse to use a whole lot of slang terms for the lady genitalia. One night, one very astute woman in the audience kept repeatedly howling with laughter at each new pun the lyrics had, and the cast had to fight not to laugh themselves.

Bizarrely, Heart did a cover of it (but not all the verses).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:54 AM on July 31, 2016 [7 favorites]


"Thatched Cottage" reminded me of a 19th century ballad sheet in the Bodleian Library's collection. It was called The Cottage, and here's something I wrote about it a while back:

The Cottage is narrated by a young woman, who begins like this: “Come all you rakish bachelors and listen to my tale / I have a cottage neat and snug I'm putting up for sale / It's in a pleasant valley with a rising hill above / And a crystal stream of water is running through a grove”. The chorus runs: “Then occupy my cottage, it is in good repair / It has a pleasant entrance and will suit you to a hair.”

She then gives a verse each to all the gentlemen who've visited her cottage, detailing their occasional difficulty in finding the entrance, their sometimes clumsy antics while inside and the fact that few proved able to remain as long as she'd hoped. Her favourite visitor seems to be the brave young soldier: “He marched in like a hero, the door was opened wide / His pouch and ammunition and balls he left outside”.

Undaunted by her sometimes unsatisfactory experience, she closes the song with another invitation: “So all young men and bachelors, come hasten be in time / Come and view my cottage, you'll find it snug and prime / The roof is well thatched over, the entrance neat and plain / And all who ever entered there have wished to go again.”

posted by Paul Slade at 1:03 PM on July 31, 2016 [8 favorites]


"My Thing is My Own", linked above, has some great verses
A fine dapper taylor, with a yard in his hand
Did profer his service to be at command
He talk'd of a slit I had above knee,
But I'll have no taylors to stitch it for me.
posted by idiopath at 1:09 PM on July 31, 2016 [2 favorites]


Evesdropper. Perfect!
posted by Westringia F. at 2:31 PM on July 31, 2016


Have you ever been part of a couple who made pet names for each other's "naughty bits"? I have, and my partner-with-a-great-sense-of-humor loved my suggestion of "Ozzie and Harriet", especially considering they were one married couple on old TV whose ONLY evidence that they had EVER had sex was the existence of their two sons.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:19 PM on July 31, 2016 [1 favorite]


"road to a christening" is really unbearably clever
posted by atoxyl at 5:15 PM on July 31, 2016


The 17th c play the Roaring Girl has some amazing genitalia puns. Moll, the roaring girl, dresses in men's clothing so there is a great scene in a tailor that's all about yards (penises) and slits in pockets, and getting into her breeches, etc. Undershirts were made of a fabric called Holland so there is a lot of talk about the lowlands and the Netherlands. She also plays a viol, which was evidently a slang term for a vagina. Lots of fingering jokes. It's pretty fun.

Shakespeare has a lot of bawdy jokes but he's got nothing on Thomas Dekker.
posted by apricot at 5:26 PM on July 31, 2016


Antipodes is hilarious. The "land down under" indeed.
...aaaaand I'm suddenly reminded of a hilarious college lady-friend who referred to female masturbation as "Australian DJing." (Say "Australian DJing" while you put your fingers out and do the 'DJ scratching a record' motion, then turn your hand upside down and repeat the motion, and say "You know, DJing 'down under!'")
posted by erst at 6:09 PM on July 31, 2016 [3 favorites]


Truly confused as to what this means for the term "pancake overlords."
posted by datawrangler at 7:13 PM on July 31, 2016


"Thatched cottage" as a term existed no later than 1805--Lord Nelson used the term "dear thatched cottage" in a letter to Lady Hamilton, circa 1801. Nelson died in 1805.

Looooooove the term. However, every time I think of it, I think of Lord Nelson. Somehow, naval history is no longer quite the same.
posted by datawrangler at 7:24 PM on July 31, 2016


On a related note, I finally got around to watching the episode "Why Is Josh In A Bad Mood?" on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and holy god those are bad. Smash my butterfly, indeed.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:33 PM on July 31, 2016


'Silent flute'

'Flute' is still fairly commonly used for 'penis' in Ireland.

As is 'mickey', which means the titles of a lot of Disney products are extremely hilarious.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 5:06 AM on August 1, 2016 [2 favorites]


The star Irish flautist James Galway is known as "the man with the golden flute". Eugene O'Brien uses this nickname with heavy irony in his play Eden, where it refers to the town's most successful seducer.
posted by Paul Slade at 5:44 AM on August 1, 2016


I've always been fond of the term 'front bottom' myself.
posted by h00py at 6:25 AM on August 1, 2016


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