Talk:dildo

Etymology
I had always thought that the origin of the word dildo was that "dildo" was the name of the peg with a hook or a loop on top stuck in the edge of a rowboat to hold the oar. The peg portion is phallus-shaped and sized, and may have been used for sexual pleasure by improvisation. 24.84.165.93 00:57, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

RFV discussion: July 2015
RFV-sense "a burden in popular songs". I'm not even sure what that's trying to say. The one citation already in the entry (Shakespeare) does nothing to clear things up. - -sche (discuss) 01:25, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Looks like it was more or less copied from here, which doesn't clear up the meaning either. Also this and this makes it look like nonsense words used to represent a song, like la la la. WurdSnatcher (talk) 03:19, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
 * burden: "A phrase or theme that recurs at the end of each verse in a folk song or ballad". However, it would seem that dildo is itself a burden in popular songs, it doesn't mean "a burden in popular songs", so we should be using . —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 07:40, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Here is one citation from Thomas Morley (c. 1600), "Will You Buy a Fine Dog?". The Radio 3 presenter's dry comment at the end is definitely worth listening out for. Smurrayinchester (talk) 10:42, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Gordon Williams' Dictionary of Sexual Language and Imagery in Shakespearean and Stuart Literature considers that a double entendre. A "single entendre" would be a better citation, but I suppose double entendre doesn't invalidate usage (though it does make things odd sometimes, as at, which is defined as "female genitals" based on a metaphor that compared female genitals to a plain and pubic hair to weeds). Gordon says dildo is linked with dido (variant: dickey-dido), a term for 'idiot' or 'genitals' (mostly male, sometimes female, as in Morgan's More Rugby Songs 62, "the hair on her diddy-di-dum / hangs down to her knees"). Green's 1590 Francescos Fortunes (VIII, 217) blends the two: "Dildido dildido, Oh loue, oh loue I feele thy rage romble below and aboue", as does To Wappe with a Widdow (Shirurn Ballads 1585-1616, 285): "hey didedo, hoe dildedo, hey dildedo, dildelye! the bravest sport that a man can devise, is to wap with a widdow, berladye!" Gordon says "the link [of dido] with dildo is apparent here, too, Shakespeare [...] ironically noting the word's common occurence in love songs", and he (Gordon) connects it further to the equally polysemous sex-term-cum-nonsense-syllable diddle. He also has a couple pointers to more uses: he quotes the line "pity me, with a dildo, dildo" from one song, and quotes the refrain of the wittol in Middleton's 1611 Chaste Maid I.ii.56 (coming after a soliloquy on how fortunate he is to "have another man to shoulder his sexual responsibilities [with] the implication ... of a substitute penis", as "la dildo, dildo la dildo"; a servant immediately comments "how's out of work, he falls to making dildoes". - -sche (discuss) 16:13, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Incidentally, Gordon also says that (at least in the 1590s-1690s) dildo could also mean penis, but most of the citations he offers as evidence of this seem more likely to be using the "false phallus" sense, or are at best ambiguous, e.g. John Mennes' 1625 Lowse's Peregrination, I.49, "Bona Roba, and ... her Lover ... the use of the Dildo they had without measure, Behind and before, they have it at pleasure." - -sche (discuss) 16:23, 20 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I suppose this is cited now. - -sche (discuss) 03:12, 24 July 2015 (UTC)