On Tue, 19 Feb 2002 bethwalk@s... wrote:
> Dear Friends,
> We're doing The Mystery of Edwin Drood (musical theater) and I have a
> question. Madame Puffer says, " 'cor, love...come off it." What is 'cor
> a contraction of?
According to my Oxford English Dictionary, "cor" is a corruption of "God"
(though I'd be intrigued to see the steps in that transformation), used as
an exclamation. One often hears the longer exclamation "Cor, blimey" -
which is, according to the OED, a corruption of the phrase "God, blind
me."
It's basically the Cockney equivalent of "Jeez".
Karen Mercedes
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
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What lies behind us, and what lies before us
are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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