In the US news, media guy David Pecker, whose innocent but gigglefacient surname led me to realize that I hadn’t posted on the phallonym pecker. So, very briefly:
From GDoS on the noun pecker-2:
Standard English pecker ‘that which pecks, i.e. a beak, a bill’, hence [the metaphorical]: 2 (Orig. US) the penis [1st cite c. 1864: She gave me to feel that nought would suffice / But stiff sturdy pecker, so proud with desire]
A huge assortment of entertaining cites over roughly 150 years.
April 23, 2024 at 6:27 am |
There also appears to have been a colloquial British sense, at least in the Victorian period and possibly beyond it on either side, meaning spirit or (metaphorical) heart. I think I’ve encountered “keep your pecker up” in this sense, and I’m pretty sure that when W. S. Gilbert, in Trial by Jury, had the Defendant sing the aside “Be firm, be firm, my pecker”, he did not intend to refer to the penis.
April 23, 2024 at 7:30 am |
Yes, and that’s sense 1 of pecker-2 in GDoS. I chose to focus only on the phallonym, putting aside the numerous other uses of pecker (which, of course, are, for many audiences, contaminated by the phallonymic sense).
April 24, 2024 at 6:16 am
Indeed, and that in fact presents a bit of a problem for modern-day performances of Trial. In a production that I was involved with (as a pianist) in college, the Defendant, as he sang this line, rather pointedly tapped the side of his nose, which doesn’t quite get at the intended meaning, but (at least, as I read it) was meant to convey “not my dick”.