Re: USAGE: Weird dialectal stuff

On 11 Jan 00, at 19:53, Nik Taylor wrote:

> Raymond Brown wrote:
> > Almost certainly so - tho I suspect it is influenced by 'toss' as in
> > 'toss-pot' (a drunkard).
>
> Ah!  So THAT'S what that means!  I heard it in a movie from Ireland,
> altho from the context I thought it was a swearword.
>
As far as I'm aware 'toss sb. (off)' = 'masturbate sb.' and a 'tosser' is
a 'masturbator', and only a slightly milder term than 'w&nker'.

In my experience, 'toss-pot' has always been associated with these
terms, having a meaning along similar but less well-specified lines.

At least, that's the (folk?) ety I grew up with, and most people I
know use the terms 'tosser', 'toss-pot' and 'w&nker' fairly
interchangeably.

(Possibly 'toss-pot' is reserved for use to or about people who
consider themselves of higher socio-economic standing than the
utterer.)

(*blush*) I feel like the legendary da Hiasl, but I s'pose that
compared to some of the bursts of potty-mouth that go through
this list (and the occasional bad word actually used as such :-), this
was probably relatively acceptable.


---
Pb

"There's only one thing worse than not knowing, and that's not guessing."