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Sleep With Me

19 Jun 01 - 03:27 PM (#487196)
Subject: Sleep With Me
From: Peter T.

One of the best written magazines in the world is the absurdly right-wing British Spectator (that the right-wing usually produces better writers than the left is a source of constant irritation to me). In this week's issue, the author of the "Mind Your Language" column, the improbably named Dot Wordsworth, goes on the hunt of "sleep with". Like me, she assumed it was a modern coinage.

Not so. The earliest reference in the OED is from 900, in Alfred's Laws -- when a man "hir mid slaepe" with a woman not his wife. 100 years later, Aelfric paraphrases the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife, when she makes a grab for him -- "His hlaefdige lufode hine, and cwaeth to him: Slap wid me!!" It turns out that this is in turn a direct translation from the Latin Vulgate -- "Dormi mecum!" She finally notes that "sleeping around" is a new addition to the OED, and is not noted before 1919. The phrase that is.

yours, Peter T.


19 Jun 01 - 03:41 PM (#487206)
Subject: RE: Sleep With Me
From: wysiwyg

"Sleep With Me."

OK!

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzsnorksnarkzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....

~S~


19 Jun 01 - 03:45 PM (#487208)
Subject: RE: Sleep With Me
From: MMario

But will you respect us in the morning?


19 Jun 01 - 03:55 PM (#487215)
Subject: RE: Sleep With Me
From: GUEST

Human ingenuity can accomplish a lot. In Genesis I:28 God said be fruitful and multiply. Nowhere in the Bible is there a word on how. Adam (with Eve's help and encouragement) figured that out, and man and woman have been busy at it ever since, sleeping only when they're too tired to keep at it.


19 Jun 01 - 03:56 PM (#487217)
Subject: RE: Sleep With Me
From: GUEST,SharonA

Um, no thanks. Nothing personal, you understand.

How does the word origin compare with that of the King James version of the Old Testament "lay with me"? Was one a censored version of the other?


19 Jun 01 - 03:57 PM (#487218)
Subject: RE: Sleep With Me
From: Matt_R

Sorry, I'm bound to a code of celibacy!


19 Jun 01 - 04:13 PM (#487228)
Subject: RE: Sleep With Me
From: GUEST

Matt, that's not God's good work for you!


19 Jun 01 - 04:17 PM (#487230)
Subject: RE: Sleep With Me
From: GUEST

Didn't know there was a 0th commandment did you?


19 Jun 01 - 04:53 PM (#487249)
Subject: RE: Sleep With Me
From: Rowana (at work)

Sleep with you? Please, sir, I hardly know you!


19 Jun 01 - 05:05 PM (#487258)
Subject: RE: Sleep With Me
From: katlaughing

Peter, how very interesting. Thanks for posting this. I love etymology!

I've got a nice snuggly quilt for the next time we find ourselves stuck on some blustery mountain top, battling evil villians, wiht or without Annette.:-)

As for you others, turning down a nice gentleman like Peter, pshaw! Nothing wrong with a snuggle and no one said it had to be more than that! Consenting adults and all, could be either way! **BG**

kat


19 Jun 01 - 05:18 PM (#487262)
Subject: RE: Sleep With Me
From: mousethief

Yeah, Kat, and all Potiphor's wife wanted was someone to snuggle.

Alex


19 Jun 01 - 05:37 PM (#487285)
Subject: RE: Sleep With Me
From: Matt_R

Potiphar was cool and so fine
But his wife would never toe the line
It's all there in Chapter 39 of Genesis
She was beautiful but evil
Saw a lot of men against his will
He would have to tell her that she still was his

Joseph's looks and handsome figure
Had attracted her attention
Every morning she would beckon
"Come and lie with me, love"
Joseph wanted to resist her
Till one day she proved too eager
Joseph cried in vain
"Please stop! I don't believe in free love!"


19 Jun 01 - 05:47 PM (#487291)
Subject: RE: Sleep With Me
From: JenEllen

LOL...Jaysus kat! My addled brain read 'entomology'. (Annette: "Chere, just what do you have in your quilt? And no monsieur, those are not pillows!)

Okay, so what about great 'SLEEP' songs? Santo and Johnny's 'Sleepwalk'.

~J


19 Jun 01 - 05:53 PM (#487294)
Subject: RE: Sleep With Me
From: Amergin

boy, Peter here found a new way to beg for sex....I am impressed....I find though that I must turn you down...you're a little too emasculine for my taste....


19 Jun 01 - 05:55 PM (#487298)
Subject: RE: Sleep With Me
From: mousethief

Sleep with me
I want to be your partner
Can't you see
The evening is just starting
Night is falling
And I am calling
Sleep with me...

Hmmm.


19 Jun 01 - 06:38 PM (#487333)
Subject: RE: Sleep With Me
From: JenEllen

O are you sleepin' Maggie
O are you sleepin' Maggie
Let me in, for loud the linn
Is roaring now o'er the warlacragie


19 Jun 01 - 06:40 PM (#487338)
Subject: RE: Sleep With Me
From: Bill D

...so there was this trial in Kentucky many years ago, (I was told it was real)...a young fellow was accused of entirely too much intimacy with a girl who was much too young, and the prosecutor was having a lot of problems with the questions, since he was too 'moral' to use the vulgar forms of language.

"Henry, did you have carnal knowlege of Miss Smith?"

"Huh?"

"What I'm trying to ask is, did you sleep with this girl?"

"Ummm...not a wink, sir!"

.....I believe they dismissed the case on a writ of habeus omnia euphemism


19 Jun 01 - 06:41 PM (#487339)
Subject: RE: Sleep With Me
From: kendall

Definition of virtue: INSUFFICIENT TEMPTATION


19 Jun 01 - 06:44 PM (#487343)
Subject: RE: Sleep With Me
From: McGrath of Harlow

I'd have thought that by American standards the Spectator would count as a bit liberal.


19 Jun 01 - 07:06 PM (#487362)
Subject: RE: Sleep With Me
From: Peter T.

The best thing about the Spectator is that there is something amusing about the "nutty toffs" agenda, which is quite different from the Yankee "lockn'load" variety. Just distance I guess.

"Two Sleepy People" is a nice sleep with me but I am awake kind of song.

yours, Peter T.


19 Jun 01 - 08:45 PM (#487426)
Subject: RE: Sleep With Me
From: Amos

I think most people find that the most exhilerating sexual fulfillment is often shortly a world-class soporific, and I imagine that's been true since before Abraham's day!

A


20 Jun 01 - 02:31 AM (#487596)
Subject: RE: Sleep With Me
From: JenEllen

Forgot about that one! It's perfect...

Well here we are just above the Seine
Foggy little fella, drowsy little dame
Two sleepy people by dawn's early light
And too much in love to say goodnight