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Dear GallantTed: I thought of a question for you. Knowing what the old timers called a cesspool, was, I was surprised to hear the phrase "bad cess to you". At first I thought it was hoping the victim would have an acute stoppage of the lower end of the the alimentary canal. Please, sir, can you tell us the etymology of this phrase?
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Bill:
Wrong Ted answering, but cess is probably short for success and means now luck. so bad cess to you means bad luck to you.
The other Ted
TEd
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Dear TEd: But good cess doesn't suc.
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teD has successfully sussed this one, although OED2 gives an alternate etymology:
Anglo-Irish.
[? for success, or from cessą sense 2.]
In phrase bad cess to = ‘bad luck to, evil befall’.
1859 Punch 17 Dec. Carlisle and Russell—bad cess to their clan! 1860 S. Lover Leg. & Stories (ed. 10) 313 Bad cess to you, can't you say what you're bid.
cessą sense 2 - Ireland. The obligation to supply the soldiers and the household of the lord deputy with provisions at prices ‘assessed’ or fixed by government; hence loosely used for military exactions generally. Obs. exc. Hist.
1612 Davies Why Ireland, &c. (1787) 20 By their continual cess and extortion
[aside to bill] perhaps our new Ted is more interested in 'gamblen' than gamboling through word history.
I the matter will re-word; which madnesse Would gamboll from. -WS
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There is also 'bad scran to you', where scran = food, provisions. Irish expression, word of unknown origin.
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TEd
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Howya WWH
Didn't see yer question until now - was too busy writen potery (check out the Fuzzled Post). Bad cess, eh? Not the sort of term a nice bear like meself would be usen. Could it be anyhin ta do with Cecil - the God of luck...
"Bad cess to" means a curse on and it could be linked to the need for Irish householders ta provide the soldiers of their English overlords with provisions at low prices "assessed" by the government.
Good cess ta yerself
GT
GT
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Dear Tsuwm
There's room in me life fer both words and gamblen. Did ya read the great pome I wrote yet, on the Fuzzled thread?
I'll wager it'll intoxicate ya with it's brilliance.
GT
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As a gambling man, you ought to be able to give bit more information about "Cecil, the god of Luck" I sense a jest, but cannot flesh it out.
Once when I was a visitor in Port Deposit, MD, the black cook asked me if I had seen the sisslewig. I could truthfully say I had not. Later in the day I found out that the sisslewig was the newpaper.................
the "Cecil Whig".
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When I was a kid, there were two children who lived across the street from me. Cecil and Dusty Rhodes. We once decided to make a movie of Man of La Mancha, and Dusty said, "I'll be Don Quixote, Ted will be Sancho Panza and Cec'll be de mill."
Well, I said it actually, but I didn't want you to think I made puns or anything like that.
TEd
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