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From: dkaulf@hpqt0147.sqf.hp.com (Dick Kaulfuss)
Subject: Re: Help with "Ramscallion"
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Date: Mon, 10 Jul 1995 09:23:10 GMT
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Steven Bodzin (seb@sirius.com) wrote:
: In article <3tk7ng$k9@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, oblq@aol.com (OBLQ) wrote:

: }When I was a small boy growing up my grandmother would often refer to me
: }and my brother as little "ramscallions" (Sp?). I've not been able to find
: }the word in any dictionary and so never knew what it meant until a few
: }years ago. I was told that it meant " a man who's scrotum hangs lower than
: }the tip of his penis". Is this true? If so, what is the origin and how did
: }this word come into vocabulary? Can anyone clarify?
: }
: }           Thanks, Waarki

: Perhaps it is a variation upon "rapscallion," which I've read in Victorian
: and, I believe, even Elizabethan texts, to mean someone with no morals. My
: little handy dictionary places it around 1690, "obscurely derived of
: rascal and tatterdemalion." 

: Tatterdemalion, in turn, is defined as ragged or a ragged person, "of
: obscure origin."

  No. It's obviously derived from the O.F. (Old Franglais) phrase "rams'
  couilles", which subsequently found its way into Scots (via the Auld
  Alliance, and a change in farmyard animal) as "the cuddy's ba's".  Anyone
  who's ever seen a ram would immediately see the connection with the original
  poster's definition.
  
  Dick (it's Monday again)

  Joking aside,"rapscallion" (= rogue, rascal) appears to have French origins.
