BS: Pillock

Subject: BS: Pillock
From: kendall
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 10:27 AM

Is there a direct translatiom from English to American English for the word "Pillock"??

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 10:29 AM

Wassock?

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Stower
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 10:33 AM

The origin of the word is from pillicock, an old English word for penis. So would 'prick' do?

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 10:45 AM

Not sure it fits, but a phrase I learned in HS to describe a person who is a prick, in even less-flattering terms, is "a penis throb." In other words, not rising (LOL) to the level of an erect, working penis but a mere powerless, unfulfilled throb. In a dismissive tone of disapprobation.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: gnu
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 10:46 AM

I did not know that.

I always thought twit, dummy....

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 10:54 AM

I figure it means about the same thing as "dipstick" does in North America.

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: mauvepink
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 12:48 PM

In Ally McBeal they constantly referred to it as "the dumbstick"! lol

mp

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Smedley
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 12:52 PM

It's an insult but a pretty mild one, for somebody who is somewhat stupid, a bit slow to grasp ideas, and makes a lot of mistakes. But never used with anything approaching venom or hatred.

Maybe 'schmuck' would do.

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: kendall
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 04:34 PM

Only if you speak Yiddish.

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: artbrooks
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 06:29 PM

Oy...doesn't everybody?

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Lox
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 06:34 PM

A Pillock would be somebody obtuse who is unjustifiably a bit smug about how clever they think they are.

When such a person gets your goat, you might think to yourself "what an utter Pillock!"

It is said with either frustrated anger, or contempt.

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 07:27 PM

...for in the thirty-fifth year of the same prelate, we find, that Johanna, the wife of Henry Pillock, died seised of a moiety of the manor....
—from The History and Antiquities of the County Palatine of Durham, Volume 3 by William Hutchinson (1794).

In Dr Campbell's Political Survey, under the article Shetland Islands, it is stated: "As for sillucks and piltocks, which are a kind of small whales, the meaner sort live on their flesh, such as it is." As above observed, the sillock is the young fry of the coalfish, and the piltock the same fish a year old. The Doctor has probably been led into the ludicrous mistake of describing them as "small whales," from the similarity of the name piltock (or pillock, as it is sometimes pronounced), to palach, the name by which the porpesse is universally known in the Orkney and Shetland islands.
—from A Tour through Some of the Islands of Orkney and Shetland by Patrick Neill (1806).

Delphinus.
Phocaena, Pillock, Porpoise, or Porpus; sometimes seen in considerable numbers, during summer, pursuing other fish.
—from The History and Antiquities of the County of the Town of Carrickfergus by Samuel McSkimin (1811)

The pillock is a large fish, about ten foot long, and as great of body as ane ordinare horse, almost shaped like a pike, black coloured, with a long head, and a monstrous number of teeth, all of equal length. It is seldom catched but when inveigled in herring-nets. The countrey people make oyl of them.
—from A Large Description of Galloway by Andrew Symson (1823)

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Gurney
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 11:09 PM

My take is exactly like Smedley's. A mild insult you would use like "God, you're a pillock sometimes, Phil!"
Stower's probably right about it's origin, pillicock was used in the 13th century for penis. Halliwell's Dict. of Archaic Words.

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: theleveller
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 06:50 AM

Dickhead?

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 07:06 AM

Etymology aside - I always thought pillock meant stupid and clumsy or oafish, whereas, prick is mean spirited and selfish.

Did I get it wrong?

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Smedley
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 07:24 AM

There is no 100% correct answer in these matters, VT, but that sounds accurate to me. Much easier to say pillock with an element of affection than it ever would be to say prick.

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 11:00 AM

I'd always assumed it was the diminutive of pill.

The best thing to do with a foreign word that rolls off the tongue is surely to import it, and enrich the native idiom.

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 11:19 AM

Yeah, I assumed it was a diminutive of pill also.

In the US, I have heard the expression, "He's a real pill"—a long time ago, and not often. I took it to mean, like a pill, he's "hard to take," unpleasant, but something you just have to put up with.

Pill—pillock, ball—ballock, bull—bullock. How many other words end in "ock"?

I don't suppose ham—hammock counts, does it?

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 11:23 AM

haddock

Which would make quite good mild insult.

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Paul Reade
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 06:46 PM

I once heard the late lamented Jake Thackray define a Pillock as a "Yorkshire scrotum"!

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 07:16 PM

Hammock is actually a porcine insult. Pigs often use it when they consider another pig to be a pillock.

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 07:35 PM

According to Oxford, it's derived from a Scandinavian word for a penis.

-ock is also a (English rendering of a) common Gaelic diminutive, eg Morag = little Mary.

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: mousethief
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 07:40 PM

Warlock?

O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 07:44 PM

What's a warl?

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 08:51 PM

It's sort of like a little whirlpool, but stronger.

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 10:12 PM

Not in Merriam Webster's Collegiate, 10th ed.

OED:
-A small pill. obsolete.
-A form of pillicock, which in vulgar dialect is penis, but in Shakespeare, Cotgrave, Urquhart, and d'Urfey, variously used to mean a darling, or a wanton.

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Gurney
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 10:55 PM

Johnnys-come-lately all, Q.

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 25 Jan 10 - 10:47 AM

"Pillock" is another word for "Divvy".

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Jan 10 - 12:35 PM

"Pills" was also a semi-euphemism for "Balls" in my schooldays {& rugby players will [hence?] sometimes refer to the ball facetiously as 'the pill'}: & 'balls' in its turn a sort of shortened form of 'bollocks' [or perhaps conversely 'bollocks', or 'ballocks' (both spellings acceptable?), originally a diminutive of 'balls'?]. So perhaps 'pillock' - as well as probable but surely not definitive relationship to 'pillicock' - a facetious semi-derivative euphemism for 'bollock'.

As all of these are likely to be oral-tradition words long before recorded, it is pretty well impossible to establish which form will have preceded which...

Deep waters, Watson...

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Jan 10 - 01:20 PM

its not as good as prickeen.
pillock is a mildly derogatory term,not as objectionable as arsehole or bollocks.
I had the honour of being described in such a manner by one Gervase Webb,a member of this forum,being insulted by said member is akin to being savaged by a dead sheep,or lampooned by a limp lettuce.

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Les from Hull
Date: 25 Jan 10 - 01:43 PM

Stupid or naive is implied, with a side order of harmless.

It can be used to a friend without starting a fight, especially if he's done something slightly stupid 'Oh you pillock!' or even of yourself if you're reporting to friends something you'd done that was quite stupid and embarrassing 'I felt a right pillock!'. 'Right' is the proper adjective to go with pillock to slightly increase the degree of pillockness.

This is Northern English (Yorkshire) usage. I hope our American cousins enjoy calling each other (or themselves) 'right pillocks'.

Les

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 25 Jan 10 - 02:05 PM

HASSOCK!

A dickhead preacher.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 26 Jan 10 - 10:42 AM

In the immortal words of my mentor, Jim Carroll : "prick with ears" ?

No takers for "Divvy", then ?

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Rowan
Date: 26 Jan 10 - 06:40 PM

Nor even "Dickhead" which, in Oz terminology, seems equivalent to the UK usage of "Pillock".

And I'm curious about & 'balls' in its turn a sort of shortened form of 'bollocks' [or perhaps conversely 'bollocks', or 'ballocks' (both spellings acceptable?), originally a diminutive of 'balls'?].

When did a longer word (eg ballocks) become a "diminutive" of a shorter one, in this case "balls"? "Colloquial equivalent" I could accept but I've always understood a diminutive to be a shortened version of an original; eg Mike as the diminutive of Michael.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Rowan
Date: 26 Jan 10 - 06:42 PM

Cassock could be hassock's twin.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 26 Jan 10 - 07:33 PM

From wordnetweb.princeton.edu:

"diminutive:
- a word that is formed with a suffix (such as -let or -kin) to indicate smallness"

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 26 Jan 10 - 08:03 PM

So Mickey is a diminutive of Mick.

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Rowan
Date: 26 Jan 10 - 08:35 PM

Well then, there you go; learn something every day.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 26 Jan 10 - 08:43 PM

""Cassock could be hassock's twin.""

Not the twin, Rowan, it's what the dickhead preacher wears, to hide the anomalous positioning of the family jewels.

LOL
Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: TheSnail
Date: 26 Jan 10 - 08:52 PM

Pollock!

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 26 Jan 10 - 10:06 PM

That is nought but a fishy and confusing intervention, Snail: Pollocks - or Bollocks - to it, Pillock - or Pollock...

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 27 Jan 10 - 03:34 AM

The University of Edinburgh's Halls of Residence nowadays are the Pollock Halls. Back in the 60s the UofE owned a former church known as the Pollock Hall (where the Folk Song 65 and 67 concerts took place), and there was also the University Pollock Club.

Not to mention a few Dicks.

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: TheSnail
Date: 27 Jan 10 - 05:42 AM

Total Carp!

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 27 Jan 10 - 08:22 AM

I see that magazine has borrowed the spellchecker from the Grauniad newspaper...

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: TheSnail
Date: 27 Jan 10 - 09:52 AM

There's another one called Carp Talk. I wish they would merge to become Talk Total Carp. I wonder if it has sister publications - Total Pollock and Total Sprat.

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 27 Jan 10 - 07:43 PM

Pollock and Carp?

They're just red herrings.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 05:27 PM

Oh for Cods' sake... that's it..! this is no plaice for comments like that.. on yer pike, the pair of you!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 06:12 PM

O cummon Liz......ain't you got no sole?

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 06:13 PM

This thread is starting to flounder.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Rowan
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 08:05 PM

You lot need "The fish song"

I was a cook
and she was a waitress
Down at the Salty Sam Seafood Café
and somewhere 'tween the clam juice and the seaweed salad
some little shrimp just lured her away

Oh, I lobster and never flounder
He wrapped his line around her
and they drove off in his carp
Oh, I lobster and never flounder
I octopus his face in
Eel only break her heart

I said, "Just squid and leave me
for that piano tuna
if you want to trout something new"
She was the bass I ever had
Now my life has no porpoise
Oh my cod, I love her, yes, I do

Oh, I lobster and never flounder
He wrapped his line around her
and they drove off in his carp
Oh, I lobster and never flounder
I octopus his face in
Eel only break her heart

(Spoken:)
"Boy, I swordfish she'd come back to me, Sandy. I shore'd a whale of a time." "Now, Richard, you know she'd just pull that 'Not tonight, I've got a haddock' routine." "You're probably right. But y'know, I've kelped her picture in my walleye just for the halibut. I wonder if she's still got mine in her perch?" "Did you..you say 'perch'?" "Yeah, I'm afraid so." "That's good. For a moment there, I thought I was losing my herring." (audience groans) "Well, we bass squid all this seahorsing around before these people out here go into a state of shark." "Yeah, if we get out of here alive, it's going to be a...mackerel." "Frankly scallop, I don't give a clam."

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: kendall
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 09:00 AM

It's funny how one fishy remark spawns another.

Subject: RE: BS: Pillock
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 11:12 AM

Does anybody else remember the episode of "I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again" where they tried to break the world record for the number of fish jokes in one minute (or maybe two)?