Re: [tied] Re: Colonial /r/'s

At 11:00:24 on Friday, 4 March 2005, tgpedersen wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
> <BMScott@...> wrote:

>> At 10:07:52 on Friday, 4 March 2005, tgpedersen wrote:

>>>>> toss-pot (some Australian sitcom) cf. Danish tosse
>>>>> "idiot, fool", and cf Danish gnavpot "sourpuss".

>>>> I don't see a parallel: a tosspot is 'One accustomed to
>>>> toss off his pot of drink; a heavy drinker; a toper,
>>>> drunkard', attested by 1568.

>>> And the quote is from where?

>> OED.

> Not contemporary with the first attestation, then.

I have no idea what you're trying to convey here. The
quotation is the OED definition; the citations rather
obviously match it.

I have found on the net some indication that in recent years
the sense has shifted to 'person held in low esteem; fool'
in England and perhaps Australia, but this is evidently a
recent extension of the meaning.

Brian