to cock out

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jal
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to cock out

Post by jal »

Jamaican has a reflex of "to cock out" ("kak out") for "to stick out", "to protrude". I can't find an English equivalent in any dictionary - is it from some dialect?


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Re: to cock out

Post by Salmoneus »

jal wrote:Jamaican has a reflex of "to cock out" ("kak out") for "to stick out", "to protrude". I can't find an English equivalent in any dictionary - is it from some dialect?


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I'm not familiar with it as an idiom per se, but it makes sense to me. "Cocked", can mean bent or sticking up, so sticking out isn't hard to imagine. [Cocked ears stick up, a cocked nose is raised, a cocked hat sticks up at one side, a cocked trigger sticks out; a cocked snook sticks out a long way, although since all snooks are by definition cocked, that's kind of an odd one].

Apparently, agriculturally "cocked" can mean assembled into a pile, which would also stick out, so there's that too.


It's worth bearing in mind, though, that a lot of the "English" borrowed into languages in colonial countries, particularly into creoles, may not be recognisably English to any modern speaker. In particular, the colloquial speech of the British Army and the Royal Navy in the 19th century was at times bloody impenetrable (a combination of lower-class archaisms, borrowings from cant and shelta, borrowings from the mediterranean lingua franca, borrowings from a random assortment of Indian and Indochinese languages, innovative slang, and word games). Sometimes you won't be able to work these things out without being an expert historical linguist (and of course a lot of it was never recorded anyway).
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Re: to cock out

Post by jal »

Salmoneus wrote:"Cocked", can mean bent or sticking up, so sticking out isn't hard to imagine.
Thanks, I wasn't aware of "cocked".
Sometimes you won't be able to work these things out without being an expert historical linguist (and of course a lot of it was never recorded anyway).
Yeah, that's often a problem :). And sometimes they are more recent (e.g. Jamaican "kaaban" (< carbon) for "copycat" or "knock-off").


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Re: to cock out

Post by Vijay »

I couldn't have guessed off the top of my head what "to cock out" might mean, but 'to stick out' makes sense.

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Re: to cock out

Post by Salmoneus »

jal wrote:
Salmoneus wrote:"Cocked", can mean bent or sticking up, so sticking out isn't hard to imagine.
Thanks, I wasn't aware of "cocked".
And the associate verb "cock", of course.
Sometimes you won't be able to work these things out without being an expert historical linguist (and of course a lot of it was never recorded anyway).
Yeah, that's often a problem :). And sometimes they are more recent (e.g. Jamaican "kaaban" (< carbon) for "copycat" or "knock-off").


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From 'carbon copy', a reference that will have become completely baffling in a generation or two!
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Re: to cock out

Post by Zaarin »

Salmoneus wrote:
Sometimes you won't be able to work these things out without being an expert historical linguist (and of course a lot of it was never recorded anyway).
Yeah, that's often a problem :). And sometimes they are more recent (e.g. Jamaican "kaaban" (< carbon) for "copycat" or "knock-off").


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From 'carbon copy', a reference that will have become completely baffling in a generation or two![/quote]
I'm in my twenties: were it not a stock phrase, it already would be completely baffling to me. :p
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Re: to cock out

Post by Axiem »

Some of the boys in my high school were very fond of the phrase "rock out with your cock out", and while I'm reminded of that, I'm not particularly certain it has anything linguistically to do with the verb here.

The only cocks I know as a verb are what you do to a gun to get it ready to shoot, and in the phrasal verb "cock up" meaning "screw up".

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Re: to cock out

Post by Ryusenshi »

Another example: for electric guitarists, a "cocked wah" means a wah-wah pedal that has been turned on and raised half-way (acting as a band-pass filter).

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Re: to cock out

Post by 2+3 clusivity »

Re the bent or curved meaning: cock eyed? I am assuming the set phrase has nothing to do with fowel or penises. Then again ... hah. Who knows.
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Re: to cock out

Post by mèþru »

According to Wijtionary almost all meanings of cock are derived from the original use of male chicken, including meanings of straightening things and penes.
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Re: to cock out

Post by Vijay »

2+3 clusivity wrote:Re the bent or curved meaning: cock eyed? I am assuming the set phrase has nothing to do with fowel or penises. Then again ... hah. Who knows.
I know a crude joke that makes use of that pun.

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Re: to cock out

Post by Axiem »

Do tell. I always love crude jokes, even if people are often reluctant to tell them.

Though I also am hard to offend, so make of the social mores what thou wilt.

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Re: to cock out

Post by Vijay »

I'm sure I can find the joke in the original source. I doubt it's all that offensive anyway, just...crude, I guess. Let's see...
Mrs. Fenimore couldn't see the eye chart in Dr. Getty's office; she also was unable to read the numbers in the color blindness test, and her stereoscopic vision tested negatively. Finally the frustrated doctor stood before her and whipped out his dick.
"Tell me now, Mrs. Fenimore, what you see!"
"Land sakes," she cried, "I see a penis!"
Closing up his fly, the optometrist triumphantly announced, "That's your problem! You're cock-eyed!"

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Re: to cock out

Post by Axiem »

I laughed :)

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Re: to cock out

Post by Imralu »

Salmoneus wrote:It's worth bearing in mind, though, that a lot of the "English" borrowed into languages in colonial countries, particularly into creoles, may not be recognisably English to any modern speaker. In particular, the colloquial speech of the British Army and the Royal Navy in the 19th century was at times bloody impenetrable (a combination of lower-class archaisms, borrowings from cant and shelta, borrowings from the mediterranean lingua franca, borrowings from a random assortment of Indian and Indochinese languages, innovative slang, and word games). Sometimes you won't be able to work these things out without being an expert historical linguist (and of course a lot of it was never recorded anyway).
Swahili has the word aisee basicall meaning "indeed", from English "I say". I find it hilarious because it's proof that people really did go around saying things like "I say, you are a rather large chap, are you not?" and it's not just a stereotype. It's also funny to hear it in rap songs.
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