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Re: CHW to SKB
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In a message dated 09/11/2006 17:51:58 GMT Standard Time, skb@BOOTLE.BIZ
writes:
Rowse cited the so-called ‘Will sonnet’ where the bard writes that his
lover (Emilia) “ ... hath Will ... and Will in overplus” meaning she was, to use
a Scouse idiom, as happy as a dog with two dicks.
Jansy subsequently asked if ‘Will as penis’ could be connected with the
slang ‘Willie?’ It’s plausible but more likely just one of those coincidences
that confound the etymologists. As I mentioned earlier, almost ANY noun can
emerge euphemistically as the ‘one-eyed snake!”
Rowse was a prominent and idiosyncratic academic, but at least one of his
feet was made of clay. I very seriously doubt that Shakespeare intended a
treble-entendre of this nature when writing his sonnet, and was simply saying that
Emilia had two lovers called William, and perhaps also that where there's a
will, or two wills, there's a way. Don't tell me that "way" is another
Elizabethan bit of Anglo-Latin bawdy. I cannot think of a single instance of Will
being used in the willie sense pre the naughty seaside postcards of late
Victorian England. But I can't find my Partridge, and I haven't looked in the OED.
As for shag, I can no more believe that VN would employ, or invest with
meaning, cheap English slang of this kind than that he would ever use an
American word as ugly as blooper.
Agree that almost any noun can acquire a submerged significance. "Johnson"
surprised me as much as it puzzled the Dude, and I wonder how the Doctor might
have reacted.
Frankly, I cannot think of any instance at all of what would conventionally
be called smuttiness in any work written by Vladimir Nabokov. I just don't
think his mind worked like that, but perhaps, as usual, someone can correct me.
Joyce, possibly; VN, no.
All best,
Charles
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