On Sat, 22 Aug 2009, Ed Durbrow wrote: > > 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.
I think I had found that bown means round, but it may be my own immagination. By the way, nobody as yet has independenntly verified my friend's interpretation that winkers means those who lutely expose themselves. It fits, but that does not make it correct. Peter. > > Ed Durbrow > Saitama, Japan > [email protected] > http://www9.plala.or.jp/edurbrow/ > the next auto-quote is: Keep your government hands off my Medicare! (Unknown Representative of Idiot America) /\/\ Peter Nightingale Telephone (401) 874-5882 Department of Physics, East Hall Fax (401) 874-2380 University of Rhode Island Kingston, RI 02881 To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
