Given the fact that I've elected to write my final paper on Russell Brand, the following etymology is absolutley obligatory.
bawdy: (adjective)dealing with sexual matters in a comical way; humorously indecent.
(noun) humorously indecent talk or writing.
The above are the contemporary meanings of bawdy, but the term goes way back in English language history. So far back that it was a not-so-recent post on the blog Podictionary, from which I've acquired some of the background for this post (http://podictionary.com/?p=657).
Evidently, the word first appeared as "bawd" way back in 1360 and it referred to someone who arranged meetings between prostitutes and their clients, aka a pimp. During the Elizabethan period, "pimp" entered common usage and the understanding of "bawd" as a role faded into the general association with sex.
No comments:
Post a Comment