Cesca
Jun 1, 2008, 12:54 PM
I was reading another thread when the word grapes was thrown into the melting pot. Just last night my partner and I were cuddling on the settee watching a programme on UKTV about where and why words are included or are not included in the dictionary.
Germaine Greer presented a part about the word "cunt", which is not a word I like but it serves a purpose like any other. It isnt the development of the word which I found so fascinating but the fact that in the UK street names beginning with the word "Grape" are derived from old street names which at one time were called Grope Street. These were as you may imagine streets where it was possible to obtain a lady for hire. Time and sensitivity changed the word grope to the word grape in street names as cities and towns tried to clean up their act.
The really funny thing is that cleaning up the act had previously been started several hundred years earlier, when the word "Cunt" was dropped from the street name. So all over Britain, at one time towns and cities had streets called "Grope Cunt Street" where gentle and not so gentlemen could have a good time and ladies earn a few coppers for selling their bodies.
I wonder just how many other sexual terms have been cleaned up in street names or in any other every day usage to mean little or nothing because of the sensitivities of our ancestors and cover for their hypocrisy and embarrassment.
Germaine Greer presented a part about the word "cunt", which is not a word I like but it serves a purpose like any other. It isnt the development of the word which I found so fascinating but the fact that in the UK street names beginning with the word "Grape" are derived from old street names which at one time were called Grope Street. These were as you may imagine streets where it was possible to obtain a lady for hire. Time and sensitivity changed the word grope to the word grape in street names as cities and towns tried to clean up their act.
The really funny thing is that cleaning up the act had previously been started several hundred years earlier, when the word "Cunt" was dropped from the street name. So all over Britain, at one time towns and cities had streets called "Grope Cunt Street" where gentle and not so gentlemen could have a good time and ladies earn a few coppers for selling their bodies.
I wonder just how many other sexual terms have been cleaned up in street names or in any other every day usage to mean little or nothing because of the sensitivities of our ancestors and cover for their hypocrisy and embarrassment.