Question for Brits
 

Tell me what first comes to mind when you read the words "old sod."

Do you think "old sod" as in "old turf," "one's native land"

or do you think "old sod" as in "an old sodomite" ("that old sod is never gonna change his ways")

?

Without context, definitely the latter, since it's a common usage. I can't remember the last time I heard someone use the word "sod" to mean "turf".

Hi Aaron,

Definitely the latter. Although the connotations of 'sodomy' are barely there. Oddly enough, 'silly sod' and 'daft bugger' are very mild profanities much beloved of old ladies. My gran would use them, but never a 'fuck' would pass her lips.

There's an overtone of affection to the phrase.

An American equivalent might be "old coot".

Got it. Thank you, everyone.

Mark, I taught an obscene Ancient Greek poem in a British translation, and my very American students were astounded to learn that "bugger" means "butt-fuck" in UK English. Here's another question--is "buggery" exclusively male on male? Can a male "bugger" a female or would that be an unidiomatic thing to say? I ask not just out of perverse curiosity but because of a translation issue.

Ann, I have become very interested in what I call "affectionate insults" (they are always dependent on context). I will add "sod" to the list.

Thank you, Matt and John, for giving your reaction and explaining.

It seems clear to me now that, on hearing the sentence "she went back to the old sod," the British mind would assume the "sod" is a person and not a place.

Get the impression sod in the turf sense was (is?) much more used in America than here from the mid-19th century on. I agree that without a context to the contrary 'she went back to the old sod' would be taken by most BE speakers to mean a man. However, The 12 vol edition of the OED gives
b. the (old) sod, one's native district or country; spec., Ireland.

Oscar Wilde was a sodomite, if you remember. That may well be relevant. Would 'the boy was underneath the sod' be ambiguous? Or a joke?

A male can certainly bugger a female. The gamekeeper Mellors does. Page 217 if I remember in the original Penguin text.

Thank you, Jerome, for confirming my conclusion. I am jealous that you have the 12 volume OED handy.

John, John, this thread is glad to hear from you. Yes, Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas were indeed sodomites. Didn't Eliot write a poem about the latter called "The Love Song of Lord Alfred Douglas"?

"The boy is underneath the sod" is, I'm afraid, sort of funny, yes.

Also, you are busted (that's American for "caught")--you have read D.H. Lawrence. No doubt he was a major influence on your early style.

Aqualung, my friend,
don't you start away uneasy
you poor old sod
you see it's only me...

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!"

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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....

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."

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

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.

David, yes, the phrase as Esther intended it is completely innocuous. But the explanation for why Esther has gotten flack for it's use lies, I would imagine, the other meaning of the word "nonce", that arose, likely with an unrelated etymology, as prison slang in 1970s. I'd imagine that far more Brits are familiar with the latter meaning than the former.

Thanks, Matt. It is indeed worse than I feared.

Hmm, Dave, Chaucer thinking canonical hours?

Sorry - I risked clouding the issue.

Annie, in a question intended for Brits, clouds seem entirely appropriate. Besides, this is 'General Talk', where clouding the issue is a time-honoured tradition, and it's almost bad form not to. So, please, bring on those clouds. I'm curious to know what you were going to say.

Matt

I was read the riot act for using the word 'nonce', I believe by Matt or Mark. I get the two gentlemen all confused in my noodle.

Yay for the Aqualung reference!

I had never, until just now, associated 'sod' with 'sodomy'.

Since we're here, Ian Anderson used the word "dosser" in a great song called "Looking For Eden", from 1983, when he went solo (ha!) and started dithering with electronic drums and synthesizers.

Is a 'dosser' the same as a 'sod'?

And where on Earth are all those songs of Eden?
The fairy tales, the shepherds and wise men?
Just one old dosser lurching down Oxford Street
to spend his Christmas lying in the rain.

I know I could go to the misty cave of Yagooglebing, but I much prefer the answers of actual humans.

To doss is to sleep -- as in dossing on the floor, dossing at a mate's house. To doss about is to fool around. A dosser is a vagrant, which I always thought meant somebody who sleeps rough, but maybe really means 'idler'.

Thank you, Brian.

barking up the wrong tree post deleted

Not by me.

Incidentally, why is it that every incidence of name confusion on the Sphere seems to involve me? I've lost track of the number of times this has happened. I am Matt, not Mark or (less often) Martin. Likewise, the Marks and Martins of this place, lovely people as they are, are not me. I've yet to be confused with Mary, but I won't be all that surprised when it happens.

I'm wondering if I need to find a way to become more memorable.

Matt (or Mark or Martin or something)

Matt,

To avoid confusion, perhaps you should just become "Q", like that enigmatic chap in the James Bond films? :D

Jayne

Matt,

There's just a lot of M names.

And as far as my confusion, I'm a numbnuts. Just ask my father. :o

Wasn't me either, Bill! I think 'nonce' is a very funny word, despite its unsavoury etymology. Just the sound of it.

Edit: I always loved the Tull song 'Mother Goose'

Bill: "barking up the wrong tree post deleted"

In a shinning moment of greatness, I bought the domain name barkingupatree.com. It now sits in domain limbo waiting for me to begin to bark. I don't bark much anymore.



Or was it .net? Whatever.