On Aug 22, 2009, at 12:24 AM, Peter Nightingale wrote: I had always interpreted the winkers part as referring to a subtle invitation for a roll in the Ale, until I asked a British friend what he thought it meant. Much to my surprise, his response was that he thought that it was pretty crude and explained the winking as the "opening and closing of certain penetrable orifices."
Naive me. I imagined winkers were blind beggars, some of whom, according to the warning, were faking it. There are a lot of words that are unfamiliar to modern speakers of English in this delightful song. I looked up nearly all of them in OED long ago, but all I got for winkers was 'one who winks'. I still have questions about some words, for example 'bowne'. Is that related to bow or bind? Women bind themselves when pregnant vs related to the shape of a bow. Ed Durbrow Saitama, Japan [1][email protected] [2]http://www9.plala.or.jp/edurbrow/ -- References 1. mailto:[email protected] 2. http://www9.plala.or.jp/edurbrow/ To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
