[Jerome Betts]

Only on-line, Aaron, thanks to a local library's subscription, as long as Conservative cuts don't put paid to it. The DNB too. Takes the sting out of paying council tax.

Authentic utterance lodged in my memory by a Japanese girl who had studied English at the local college, and then acquired a more colloquial variety working at a local hotel, addressing some things she had planted that were slow to emerge:

"Come on, peas! Silly sods! Wakey-wakey!"

[John Isbell]

The Sex Pistols, or as they were known on Radio One, The Pistols, also sang "I'm a lazy sod." The term is fairly non-sexual IMO, despite its origin.

[Mark McDonnell]

https://youtu.be/OC16gG5Rtzs

They did indeed, John. And Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols calls Bill Grundy a 'dirty sod' (among other things) in this notorious piece of early evening TV. Seems quite lovely and quaint now.

[John Whitworth]

Lawrence an influence, Aaron. Good God I hope not. I did read 'The Rainbpw' and the other one with Glenda Jackson in it. Lady C I possessed when I was thirteen. I didn't read it through

D.H. Lawrence - what a w*nker, to use another English expression.

This house is a Lawrence-free zone.

[Aaron Poochigian]

Nonetheless, John,

I fear that you belong to the so-called "Chatterley" generation:

Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

Up to then there'd only been
A sort of bargaining,
A wrangle for the ring,
A shame that started at sixteen
And spread to everything.

Then all at once the quarrel sank:
Everyone felt the same,
And every life became
A brilliant breaking of the bank,
A quite unlosable game.

So life was never better than
In nineteen sixty-three
(Though just too late for me) -
Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

[Aaron Poochigian]

Here's Larkin using "old sod:"

I'm sorry to say, that as life looks today,
I'm going to reside out in Wellington,
Where everyone's rude, and ashamed of a nude,
and nobody's heard of Duke Ellington;
Life, you aren't a god, you're a bloody old sod
For giving me such an employment
'Cos in such a bad job only pulling my knob
Will bring me the slightest enjoyment.

[Esther Murer]

On a related matter, I've gotten flack for writing "for the nonce." I gather "nonce" is the British equivalent of US "nance" (nancy boy), is that right? Then there are nonce-words and nonce-forms....

[Matt Q]

A lot worse than that, Esther, it's "a slang word for a pariah within a community of prisoners, typically a sex offender, child sexual abuser or one who has turned state's evidence."

Added: The OED gives simply, "A person convicted of a sexual offence, especially against a child."

[David Anthony]

You'll find the phrase in Chaucer, although at that time it was spelled "for the nones". It's completely innocuous.

[Adam Elgar]

Here's Swinburne combining both meanings:

Now Oscar's gone to meet his God,
Not earth to earth, but sod to sod.
It was for sinners such as this
Hell was created bottomless.