A couple commenters reacted: "Thanks for the visual"/"Splurted? Sounds more virus-y than blurted." Yes, it makes you picture big droplets of saliva coming out with the words — a picture that seems to have been drawn by R. Crumb.
Is "splurt" even a word? I looked it up before publishing, because I wondered. Is it a corruption of "spurt" — influenced by "blurt"? The OED has an entry for "splurt" as a transitive verb (as I used it) but marks it as "dialect." It means "To squirt or spirt out (liquid)." The intransitive use — "To sputter or splash" — is not marked as dialect, and it goes back to a1849: "When the fire-canoe of the pale-face first hissed and splurted in the great waters of the mighty Missouri."
"Spurt" is an older word, also spelled "spirt," and it pretty much means "squirt," which the OED defines as: "To eject or spirt out water in a jet or slight stream." An interesting sidelight on "squirt" is that it has a separate meaning "To void thin excrement; to have diarrhœa." Here are some edifying historical examples:
1530 J. Palsgrave Lesclarcissement 731/2 I squyrt, I have a lax, jay le va va.A "laske" is a "Looseness of the bowels." From 1542: "Many honeste persones died of ye hote agues, and of a greate laske." From 1574: "Meate excessively ingurgitate and eaten..engendreth..laskes and vomit."
1598 J. Florio Worlde of Wordes Squaccarare, to squatter, to squirt or lash it out behind after a purgation.
1611 R. Cotgrave Dict. French & Eng. Tongues Foirer, to squirt, to shite thinne as in a laske.
1653 T. Urquhart tr. F. Rabelais 1st Bk. Wks. xxv. 115 For those that are costive..it will make them..squirt the length of a Hunters Staffe.
Just some scholarship. Settle down. Get back to your breakfast. You're wondering about "blurt." The OED says it means "To utter abruptly, and as if by a sudden impulse; to ejaculate impulsively; to burst out with." "Blurt" is the word that is most about talking, as opposed to emitting a liquid.
1656 H. More Enthusiasmus Triumphatus (1712) 35 Blurting out any garish foolery that comes into their mind.Yes, I probably should have written "blurt." But I don't know. The language spirit moved me. Spirit... spirt... It's always moving... loosely, laxly.
1768 A. Tucker Light of Nature Pursued II. 566 Sometimes people will blurt out things inadvertently, which if judgment had been awake it would have suppressed.
Now, please, eat your breakfast. I am only trying to help.
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Crumb. You are asking for a world of hurt.
Penises splurt.
See also “the squits” for diarrhea. It has lost that hard lumpy consonant “r” and is just “s...t that won’t quit.”
Having given us the visual, you won't let it die. Thanks.
A splurt is a blurt accompanied by spittle.
I see what you did there, Ann.
Back in the days of steam television on the Gary Moore morning show they would occasionally kill air time with a game called Onomatopoeia. The prop guy would make a noise and the contestants would vie to coin a word for it. What combination of things would make a "splurt"? Something involving mayonnaise and a turkey baster is my guess.
Eddie Haskell used to call Beaver "the squirt".
I'll leave it at that.
Gonna need to double the moderation for this one......,
Yesterday Yoko Ono, today R. Crumb. StuckInTheSixties Disorder manifest.
Joe Biden does talk some thin shit.
Ooh how alliterative! spurt squirt blurt splurt like the old Floyd album metal meddle mettle medal ...
I have used the word “splurt” myself in the past. I think of it as onomatopoeia, e.g., the sound ketchup makes when it won’t come out of a bottle as I shake it over my hamburger, then a huge glob splurts out With enough ketchup to cover five burgers.
Thinking in basic Etymological sounds leads one to spit , spew and ex-spells. The old timers spit while they spew out and ex-spell.
Something like with "spatter" and "splatter." Dexter (Michael C. Hall) would correct people about that. His character (a fictional serial killer) had a day job as a police "blood spatter expert," but most people thought the word was "splatter," probably because "splat" was a common word for when somebody makes a mess of something (or someone or themself).
Pace Ann, if blurt means "to ejaculate impulsively", it's still about emitting a liquid.
Penises splurt.
Splooge splurts.
Or for our Spanish friends, "La espluga esplerta."
Babbling buffoons blurt.
Asked to comment, Sen. Biden responded, "Pony solcier, biscuits and gravy, vootie. What?"
I thought splurt was like squirt only its output is thicker, messier and less liquid. So a tube of Miracle Whip or ketchup "Splurts" out. While a "squirt" gun usually is water.
Spits out + blurts out = Biden splurts out. or:
Biden Mind Sludge + blurts = Biden Splurts.
Biden had better chose a VP who's intelligent and articulate or its going to be a long Election Season.
I'm surprised Moby Dick never splurted.
I agree that Creepy Joe had a blowout into the porcelain phone.
Lots of wiping since.
- Krumhorn
I know folks who communicate mostly with onomatopoeia, but they’d probably never use that word.
" Brute!" Peter again ejaculated.
This friendly personal note cleared the air, made their communication closer." -- Henry James
Just something Pete splurted out all of a sudden ...
Leave it to the Perfesser to find the most pedantic and irrelevant angle from a story.
Big Mike compared splurt to “the sound ketchup makes when it won’t come out of a bottle as I shake it...” Reminds of the poem:
When pouring ketchup
from a bottle,
First none will come
And then a lot’ll.
Might have been from George Goble..
I love your etymology excursions! Now we know why having loose bowels is often referred to as "having the squirts."
I hate that shit. “Flustrated” is a particular irritant. I may be a Cracker but language, and the clear use of it, matters.
“ To utter suddenly (a short prayer; now in wider sense, any brief expression of emotion). Also absol.
1666 S. Pepys Diary 23 July (1972) VII. 215 I could not but with hearty thanks to Almighty God ejaculate my thanks to Him.
1791 E. Inchbald Simple Story I. iv. 38 Miss Woodley ejaculated a short prayer to herself.”
“ 1712 R. Steele Spectator No. 493. ⁋4 We were coming down Essex Street one Night a little flustrated.
1797 A. M. Bennett Beggar Girl I. vii. 172 She was, she confessed, quite flusterated at the idea.
1876 M. Oliphant Curate in Charge (ed. 5) II. iv. 100 The head of the college was slightly flustrated, if such a vulgar word can be used of such a sublime person.”
You shame the Mask Replica, Jonathan. Failure to recognize Ann's homage to Captain Beefheart is a shame.
In most of Altposts, the main topic or meme of the story is purposefully the least revealing 'angle" of the story. Angling is a key critical evolutionary life skill. I'll grant she doesn't always land lunkers, but that's why it's called fishing not catching.
Am I trolling for trout?
"Splurt" is appropriate usage for verbal diarrhea.
The American experiment is all about bastardizing the language to fit our needs of the modern seigheilist. Why does the cracker MC refulmitate hate America so deeply, one wonders?
But you tease and you splurt
And you shine all the buttons on your green shirt
I prefer teasing and pleasing to blurting and splurting..,,,,,,,,,,
“1797 A. M. Bennett Beggar Girl I. vii. 172 She was, she confessed, quite flusterated at the idea.”
Meh, Georgian literotica. What do you expect?
shite thinne as in a laske. Splendid.
"Is splurt really a word"
I think your legal training misleads you into believing that questions of this nature have dispositive answers, which can be determined by recourse to authoritative texts. This is simply untrue. Anyone who wants to can write a dictionary, and he can put anything he likes on its pages. He can even call it "Webster's".
@Louie the Looper, your doggerel is similar to “Catsup Bottle” by Ogden Nash.
When you can't splurt anymore because of age hopefully with luck you'll still be able to glerp
I inferred "spout" and "blurt". Spouting nonsense/blurting it out.
"Aks" for "ask" is as old and respectable as "laske" for "lax." But enough about egesta.
"Flustrated" is much older than I thought!
Narr
He ejaculated in surprise
Spurtle is one I ran into a while back that took me a while. Closest I got was a jet from a fountain, but maybe not so high powered as “jet” implies.
it's a very cromulent word,
A similar process might have mixed "splash" and "slosh" to give us "splosh." And somehow "sputter" gave birth to "splutter." "Spl" words (and "sp" and "sl" words) seem to convey similar meanings, while "bl" (and "br") words tend to indicate something harsher, blunter, more brutal. A blot or a blotch is more serious than a spot or a splotch.
Try it out. "Splunt" and "sprutal" sound a lot less serious than "blunt" or "brunt" or "brutal." "Spludgeoning" may be violent and messy, but it doesn't sound like something you do with a club or a bludgeon, and "splundering" sounds a lot more delightful than "blundering." Try it the other way. "Splashing" won't get you into too much trouble. "Blashing" sounds like a more serious faux pas, and "blurging" sounds like it would leave one a lot more bloated than "splurging."
What the Dickens has gotten into Christmas!
Splooge!
It's the holliest, jolliest, horniest, porniest holiday special ever!
Splooge!
You'll laugh until you splurt!
narciso: cromulent? I was thinking runcible. Arguable either way, I'll grant.
tcrosse: "...Something involving mayonnaise and a turkey baster is my guess." Dude, I'm going to try to forget you said that. Mostly out of self-defense.
Separately, my compliments on Howard's new avatar. Is it aspirational, or suggestive of autobiography?
There's an episode of Blackadder where Samuel Johnson pays a visit, and Blackadder keeps throwing obscure or made-up words at him.
One does wonder then about LATHER / SLATHER and SPUTTER / SPLUTTER as well.
When I was a teenager learning the ways of love, I had a tendency to splurt.
Luckily I grew out of it because it was embarassing.
Howard said...
You shame the Mask Replica, Jonathan. Failure to recognize Ann's homage to Captain Beefheart is a shame.
In most of Altposts, the main topic or meme of the story is purposefully the least revealing 'angle" of the story
Yeah. We know. Maybe you could tell her to stop it.
"Blort": the sound of a cosh striking a skull.
"Glap": the sound of a plastic water bottle when squeezed.
According to an anecdote in the Winchester bio of Needham, JBS Haldane reported the results of an experiment dropping mammals down mineshafts-- "A rat is killed, a man is broken, a horse splashes."
Narr
The science is settled
that's why you should never eat anything flammable.
It gives you looseness of the bowels, and if it ignites
... you'll have baked a laske.
I had a visiting professor in an Education class once assert that an attachment to 'Proper English' in school was merely a form of social class bigotry.
Its a reference from the sympsons
Splurt is kind of like pornography and obscenity:: “i’ll know it when I see it”. That said, I have seen it and felt it as well. It happens and appears more and more frequently as one lives into ripe old age.
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