The Bog's Dollocks

"I'm a web 0.9 person." I winced on the phone a couple of days back, as I found myself explaining my internet origins in the days of clockwork and digestive biscuit-powered computers to a young person for whom the internet has always been there, just a given, like beer and bad wallpaper.

I used to surf for pleasure, just get online, nervously blotting out the phone bill from my curious mind, and see what I could find. Anarchy, science, culture, arcane knowledge and the rich tapestry of human weirdness available for the first time came blinking through a 14.4 modem via in strangulated bursts of red data.

By 2am, bleary-eyed and with a hand promising early RSI from so... much... mouse... clicking... I'd end up at NASA, trying to find the cool pictures, or on some arty news group which ran on a Pentium 386 in someone's cupboard in Bristol.

Has anyone ever stopped to measure the effect this sudden global openness has had upon our once-compartmentalised cultures? I mean, aside from making it easier for perverts and terrorists to operate, giving lonely home-bound people a massive lease of life, and me a significant part of my income? The extent to which we have over the last 15 years or so truly and utterly changed our perspectives is a remarkable revolution which we seem to have already forgotten.

These days though, very rarely do I find that "must return" site, the dangerous time-suck that makes me miss appointments and lie guiltily about my reasons for being late, like a shameful addict. Stumble Upon is supposed to take me back to those heady days of frontier exploration, but it doesn't. It's just another guide to the sprawling mall which the internet has become, albeit a quasi human-constructed one. Directories ain't what they used to be. Del.icio.us is cool, if you can be bothered to use it. And although I write this blog with a rhythm that just won't stop, I've practically abandoned all but a handful of blogs and podcasts, in order to catch up on books, films, radio, and television.

Still, some internet things are still sparkling, wonderful and true, and made in Britain. Such as the Peevish Slang dictionary. At last, a decent online resource, telling it as it truly is.

Welcome, Peevish, to my internet life, and congratulations on a job well done. Internet friends from other lands now have a very cool place to understand the meaning of the words I use all too frequently, and with which I permutate, obfuscate, and navigate my torrid life, and I have a nice, easy to read website to study and enjoy, and possibly submit the occasional suggestion.

Twodge

Twodge is a word which many find useful, and yet which so far has defied all definition; and this is perhaps the best indicator of Twodge to date - the meaning of the word has been obscured by prurience and confusion in almost all recorded annals.

Etymological claims have been made with reference to Cassells Dictonary of Slang relating the word Twodge to various archaic descriptors of pudenda, such as the well-known twat which dates back to the 17th Century, and similar versions such as twatchel, twachel, twachylle, twachil, twachit, twitchet, and twittle; and there is also the confusion of the "a" and the "o" as in the north western English vernacular used in Liverpool / Birkenhead / Merseyside, where Twodge becomes Twadge as in, "stinks like granny twadge".

However, despite these possible origins, the clearest indicator that Twodge is in all probability removed from these vulgar and presumed derogatory uses is to be found in the common substitution of homonyms, or related sounds, one for another, which persists in the English language, as used by the English themselves to this day. In context, meaning is opaque to everyone except the native speaker, whose mother tongue equips him or her with the ability to impart shades of meaning via rhyme, including internal rhyme, and the conflation of words; and this practise extends far further afield than the well-known Thames estuary-originated Cockney Rhyming Slang.

To define Twodge and accurately assess its meaning, one needs to search within the sound of the word, and this is best begun by clearly enunciating the word aloud, and then by breaking the word down into its component parts, each of which gives clues as to meaning.

It is important not to be to fixed upon the two letters beginning the word - "TW" - as in rhyme, the middle and end of a word have more value. It is also important to note common slang usage in other words as these impact upon the use of sounds as descriptors, sometimes with onomatopœia giving further indication as to meaning.

From the perspective of the central part of the word, "ODG" Twodge sounds like bodge or dodge and may include aspects therefore of either of these word's meaning. Given its common, street origins, it is unlikely to relate to the word lodge with the meaning of this word stemming from hunting and masonry; however it may be related to the word splodge. All of these words carry common elements - bodge = to mess up (botch); dodge = to avoid or escape; splodge = a messy splat.

Next we must also look at the "DGE" part of the word, which allows us to vary vowels, so that the "O" may become "A" or "U". So, to broaden the search, we should include (as above) twadge which is a humourous conflation of twat and vag (abbreviation of vagina); fudge, and budge. Note that fudge has two meanings: a sweet confectionery, and also, to blur differences, or to deliberately confuse - so it is similar to bodge in this way. Indeed, one might bodge a repair job and then fudge the report to obscure the bodge.

Twodge is a word with multiple meanings, most of which fall within a specific area, and many of which refer to mess, stickiness, and confusion. Sexual inferences may have much to do with human tendency to find multiple ways of referring to the body within the repressive strictures of society's sexual taboos, and it is possible that Twodge became another substitute word for the intimate parts of the female anatomy after the fact of its usage in the context of mess or making mistakes. However, the sexual connotation is by no means the first and foremost.

From analysis deriving from my first-hand experience of usage, I have formed the opinion that Twodge seems to fulfill a wide variety of purposes, not by any means all vulgar. Like twat it may be used as a term of relative endearment without great insult, but unlike twat does not carry any particular association of immediate insult. To say Twodge in public does not cause offense, although it may raise an eyebrow or two. Twodge has a comic association which may be deemed light-hearted, and can be used safely in all manner of public situations, and as a word it certainly deserves elevating to dictionary status, although, being twodge, it will probably remain elusive and difficult to ultimately categorise.

See also: Twodge.com