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In a similar vein, how is it that when someone is "fucking the dog", they're doing nothing, but when they "screw the pooch", they're doing something significant (albeit wrong)?
"She told me dick about what happened."
"The rest of us were busting our asses, but that guy did dick all day."
"I paid them all that money for their "service," but I got dick from them."
Etc, etc, etc.
Don't forget "dicking around" in the same context.
-Other things that were commonly called ‘dick’ through the middle ages up to now include: ...nothing (as in, ‘I got dick for my birthday’).
It still is commonly used in that manner.
"She told me dick about what happened."
"The rest of us were busting our asses, but that guy did dick all day."
"I paid them all that money for their "service," but I got dick from them."
-Dick became a nickname for Richard not as a pejorative (dick in reference to genitalia didn't happen until the 1890's or so), but more as a rhyming scheme. Richard would be shortened among friends to Ric, Rich, Rick, and so on. So a Rick would be referred to as Dick by some friends, hence the rise of the name. Hick and Hitch were other nicknames that arose from Richard.
-While you won’t typically hear people calling Richards ‘Hicks’ anymore, this nickname did give rise to ‘Hudde’. This in turn gave us ‘Hudson’ around the late 13th century, which of course is now a somewhat common surname.
-Spotted dick, the pudding, not someone with a certain STD, is thought by many etymologists to have gotten its name from the fact that certain types of hard cheese around the 19th century were called ‘dick’. This in turn gave rise to treacle dick (treacle with cheese), then when raisins or the like were added, ‘spotted dick’, though of course it’s made a little differently today, but the raisins particularly are still commonly used. One alternative etymology of spotted dick that some etymologists ascribe to is from the word pudding itself giving rise to puddink, then puddick, and then just dick. As spotted dick is just a type of suet pudding with dried fruit added, giving it the spots, this seems reasonable enough as well.
-Dick also once popularly meant an assertion, announcement, or declaration, such as “I do dick Mr. Beauregard… you are my hero!” Similarly, someone’s ‘dying dick’ meant something completely different in the Middle Ages as it would now, namely their ‘dying declaration’.
-Other things that were commonly called ‘dick’ through the middle ages up to now include: aprons, dictionaries, detectives, whips, and nothing (as in, ‘I got dick for my birthday’).
-Incidentally, “That’s what she said” is thought to have been around since the 1970s with the earliest documented case of the phrase showing up on Saturday Night Live, spoken by Chevy Chase in a weekend update skit in 1975, which also happened to be the first season of SNL. “That’s what she said” was later hugely popularized thanks to Wayne’s World skits on Saturday Night Live and later usage in the movie “Wayne’s World”. The British also have their own version of that statement which has been around for much longer (over a century), “said the actress to the Bishop”.
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