On Wed, 18 Jan 2006, Dawn wrote: > jlkelley wrote: > "Flowers" has been slang for quite a long time, and probably has an > association with flowering and fertility, fruit and childbearing.
OED has it back to c. 1400: c1400 Rel. Ant. I. 190 A woman schal in the harme blede For stoppyng of hure flowrys. 1527 ANDREW Brunswyke's Distyll. Waters Aiij, The same water..causeth women to have her flowres, named menstruum. 1662 R. MATHEW Unl. Alch. 106 It helpeth the stopping of the Flowers. 1741 in CHAMBERS Cycl. 1859 TODD Cycl. Anat. V. 666/2 The French term fleurs and the English flowers are now fallen into disuse. Of more interest, the etymology reads: Obs. [After F. fleurs: but this is regarded by French scholars as a corruption of flueurs: see FLUOR.] "Fluor" is defined as "1. A flow or flowing; a flux, stream." And it's also spelled that way rather far back: 1621 AINSWORTH Annot. Pentat. Gen. xviii. 11 The custome (or manner) of women, for the ordinary and naturall course of the body, or fluors. 1662 TRAPP Comm. 2 Sam. xi. 4 Her monethly fluors. 1754-64 SMELLIE Midwif. I. 110 The Fluor albus is no other than this Mucus discharged in too great quantity. In other words, the term for "flows" was a near-homonym for "flowers" and listerners could easily assume the two words were the same. So the original meaning probably had nothing to do with fertility, fruit, and childbearing, though I wouldn't be surprised if this speculative backformation made the term "flowers" seem reasonable to some users. --Robin _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
