bigmacbear (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bigmacbear) wrote2026-05-13 08:37 am
bigmacbear) wrote2026-05-13 08:37 am
Sodomizing the Lawn
On my way to the office this morning, I passed a truck loaded with what appeared to be gigantic rolls of carpet, which I realized are probably rolls of sod (as in grass pulled up with the roots and the soil surrounding them mostly intact). I made my usual joke to myself, "Looks like someone is getting their lawn sodomized."
It got me thinking about why that pun actually works. The correct verb for planting grass from a roll of sod is "laying sod" or "sodding" for short. But "sodding" also happens to be a British slang term which has the same function as "fucking" in other English dialects (just a very specific form of fucking). This, in turn, is a shortened form of "sodomizing" but, of course, is no more to be taken literally than "fucking" is in this context.
I'd be curious to know what the linguistic term is for intentionally mis-expanding an abbreviated term like "sodding" to mean "sodomizing" instead of "laying sod".
It got me thinking about why that pun actually works. The correct verb for planting grass from a roll of sod is "laying sod" or "sodding" for short. But "sodding" also happens to be a British slang term which has the same function as "fucking" in other English dialects (just a very specific form of fucking). This, in turn, is a shortened form of "sodomizing" but, of course, is no more to be taken literally than "fucking" is in this context.
I'd be curious to know what the linguistic term is for intentionally mis-expanding an abbreviated term like "sodding" to mean "sodomizing" instead of "laying sod".