End of ADS-L Digest - 13 Feb 1995 to 14 Feb 1995

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There are 3 messages totalling 67 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. jakes (2)

 2. Call for abstracts for midwest, correction: make it 1995



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Date:  Wed, 15 Feb 1995 08:07:57 EST

From:  Wayne Glowka <wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GC3.GAC.PEACHNET.EDU>

Subject: Re: jakes



>Is anyone familiar with the use of the term "jakes" (or "jake" or "jake

>house") to mean a privy or a toilet? The OED has it from c1530 on, but

>almost all of DARE's contemporary evidence for it comes from Roman Catholic

>clergymen! Is it more widespread than that? If you know it, please tell me

>where and when you heard it. Thanks.

>

>Joan Hall, DARE



Benjamin Franklin uses the word in a hilarious mock scientific proposal

called "To the Royal Academy" (_The Bagatelles from Passy_, ed. Claude-Anne

Lopez [New York: Eakins P, 1967]: 22-26). In this bagatelle, Franklin's

virtuoso persona argues that if the smell of a jakes can be tamed with

lime, a pill could be found to make farts smell so good that we would let

them fly for one another's pleasure. Cf. the article by a brilliant young

scholar from Georgia College, "Franklin's Perfumed Proposer," _Studies in

American Humor_ 4 (Winter 1985-86): 229-41. (When this gift to the

profession circulated this damn article, one editor sent it back doused in

perfume!)







Wayne Glowka

Professor of English

Director of Research and Graduate Student Services

Georgia College

Milledgeville, GA 31061

912-453-4222

wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gc3.gac.peachnet.edu

BITNET Address: Wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]USCN