The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #128541   Message #2879948
Posted By: Phil Edwards
05-Apr-10 - 09:19 AM
Thread Name: Three Butchers: WHY the naked woman?
Subject: RE: Three Butchers: WHY the naked woman?
I've got no dictionary backup for this at all, but I do wonder whether even "stark naked" always meant what we think of it as meaning. In a sense it's irrelevant - "naked woman" has always meant a woman who's scandalously underdressed, regardless of how much you have to take off in order to be naked. Nowaydays we* think the answer is "absolutely everything"**, but that hasn't always been the case.

*Well, most of us do. If a stripper strips down to a minute G-string and a pair of tassels, so that her crotch and nipples stay "clothed", does she end up naked? I think quite a few people would say Yes even now.

**Just to be really awkward, I don't think even a straightforward phrase like "taking off absolutely everything" always means *exactly* the same thing...
"And apparently she takes off absolutely everything!"
"Yeah, I know, seen it."
"No, I mean, she takes off everything!"
"What... everything?"
(That's enough channelling my inner 13-year-old.)