I am of Scottish ancestry. My Grandfather said he had a good "COD" (or CAUD) on someone, meaning a good joke on him/her. Can you tell me the derivation?
Ron Dawson
Printable View
I am of Scottish ancestry. My Grandfather said he had a good "COD" (or CAUD) on someone, meaning a good joke on him/her. Can you tell me the derivation?
Ron Dawson
The OED (subscription only, so no link I'm afraid) saysQuote:
Originally Posted by rcdawson
And there's nothing under 'caud'. Another meaning of 'cod' (that one was n5, this is n2) is given as Scottish:Quote:
...A joke; a hoax, leg-pull; a parody, a ‘take-off’. (See also E.D.D. n.5) Also attrib. or quasi-adj., parodying, burlesque; ‘mock’.
1905 Sketch LI. 472/2 Says he: ‘Is that an absolute bargain{em}no cod?’ Says she: ‘I don't know what the fish has to do with it, but I am perfectly sincere....
bQuote:
1. A pillow; a cushion. Sc. and north. dial.
a1400-50 Alexander 4916 With curtyns all of clene sylke & coddis of {th}e same...
Great! Thank you.
Another was that someone disliked was called "an old plut-ther". A useless person or thing was called a "fooot-ther". Both were sort of all-encompassing terms. Might these also have been from the Gaelic? Pardon my phonetic spellings but I never saw the words in print.
Ron Dawon
Probably Scots rather than Gaelic: The Online Scots Dictionary - Home Page
From Webster's:
They are supposed to point it out that a word is Scots, so, as they say it's dialectal, it is or was probably used somewhere outside Scotland too. As you can see they don't know where it comes from.Quote:
cod vb [origin unknown] dial : TEASE, HOAX, BANTER, KID
cod N dial : HOAX
There's no caud there. They don't have it in http://www.dsl.ac.uk/dsl/ either.