Tuesday 9 August 2011

Rotten language on Craggy Island

A thought for Father Ted fans, who will have heard his sidekick, Dougal McGuire, refer to Ted as "ya big bollocks" Though probably intended to show the hapless McGuire's scant understanding of the English language and anything else, for that matter, the expression may contain some historical significance.
It's a little-known fact that, during the Sex Pistols' 'Never mind the Bollocks' obscenity trial, the word 'bollocks' was deemed acceptable because it had been used, between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, as a slang-term, for priests and its current usage arose because of the nonsense their sermons contained.
On that basis McGuire stands just one letter away from making sense!

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