Bestiary check...

[The Succubus]

Hi guys,

I was reading through some of the old strips and came across something that puzzled me in this one:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0402.html

I haven't come across this "beast" Belkar mentions in any of the sourcebooks I've read - can anyone tell me more about it?

[Kinneus]

Well, when a man and a woman love each other very much...
"making the beast with two backs" is a common euphamism for sexual intercourse. So Belkar's line is a joke, not a reference to an actual monster.

[Vargtass]

Hi guys,

I was reading through some of the old strips and came across something that puzzled me in this one:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0402.html

I haven't come across this "beast" Belkar mentions in any of the sourcebooks I've read - can anyone tell me more about it?

Beast with two backs is an euphemism for sexual intercourse, originally from Shakespeare I believe. So you have just failed to read the right sourcebooks.

[The Succubus]

O.O

Never come across that particular euphamism before.

Durkon was right, they should have kept him gagged >.<

[Surfing HalfOrc]

Act I, Scene i, Othello

Iago and Roderigo outside the house of Desdemona's father, Brabantio (or Brabanzio), Iago and Roderigo stir up trouble...

BRABANTIO
What profane wretch art thou?

IAGO
I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter
and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.

BRABANTIO
Thou art a villain.

IAGO
You are--a senator.

And on and on, until the play's tragic end...

[T-O-E]

It's in the book of erotic fantasy. [/unfunny joke]

[David Argall]

originally from Shakespeare I believe.
Almost nothing is originally from Shakespeare. He is merely often our oldest surviving source.

Shakespeare was a popular writer for the populace. That doesn't preclude clever wordplay or originality, but it does put serious limits on it. You use words and phrases your audience doesn't understand and they don't buy tickets to the next show, and you don't get to write the show after that. Shakespeare had a long career by not forgetting this.

This phrase is to be found [tho not in English] well before Shakespeare was born, and the context also suggests that he was using a phrase he expected his audience had heard before.

[AceOfFools]

Well, when a man and a woman love each other very much...
"making the beast with two backs" is a common euphamism for sexual intercourse. So Belkar's line is a joke, not a reference to an actual monster.

Common?

I see and use a fair number of euphemisms for "between-class," but two backs is always a sexy Shakespeare reference.

[NerfTW]

There's this awesome thing called the internet, which you're on right now, that has these things called search engines, see?

Using Google, the very first link that comes up for "beast with two backs" (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=beast+with+two+backs&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=) is "Beast with two backs - the meaning and origin of this phrase." (http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/58450.html).

It's slightly quicker than asking on a message board.

[Danukian]

Almost nothing is originally from Shakespeare. He is merely often our oldest surviving source.

Seriously? Shakespeare has coined (http://shakespeare.about.com/library/weekly/aa042400a.htm) more English words than any other person - I had a professor that used to say "The three most common sources for the origins of English words are Latin, German, and Shakespeare (http://everything2.net/index.pl?node_id=1384010)." Iago using the phrase "Beast with Two Backs" does not mean that the audience has heard the phrase before, any more than MILF being a noun before Adam Herz coined it, but it is now a well known word. Shakespeare used a different route to get his audience to understand the phrase - he wrote well enough for them to imagine what was going on.

[David Argall]

Seriously? Shakespeare has coined (http://shakespeare.about.com/library/weekly/aa042400a.htm) more English words than any other person
As noted here, the question is how many were in fact coined, and how many simply do not survive in older records. And in many cases, the oldest known record is obviously not the first use.


Iago using the phrase "Beast with Two Backs" does not mean that the audience has heard the phrase before,
As we have already established, the phrase was at least 70 years old at that time. We have just not been able to trace it going from a foreign source to English.



any more than MILF being a noun before Adam Herz coined it, but it is now a well known word.
Now what is intesting about your example is that MILF is immediately defined in the text. By contrast "beast with two backs" is not. In one case, the writer assumed the viewer would not know the term. In the other, the writer assumed he would know it. So your example argues that the phrase is not original with Shakespeare.

[Paragon Badger]

There's this awesome thing called the internet, which you're on right now, that has these things called search engines, see?

Using Google, the very first link that comes up for "beast with two backs" (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=beast+with+two+backs&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=) is "Beast with two backs - the meaning and origin of this phrase." (http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/58450.html).

It's slightly quicker than asking on a message board.

Ever try googling a presumedly obscure D&D monster you aren't familiar with?

Woe be upon anyone who believes that asking a D&D forum (about the very subject of D&D) is the most efficient method. Seriously, get off your sarcastically high horse. :smallwink:

[Chronos]

Shakespeare used a different route to get his audience to understand the phrase - he wrote well enough for them to imagine what was going on.A lot of things in Shakespeare are much more obvious when seen performed by good actors than when read. Especially sexual innuendos: You may not realize just how much innuendo is in Shakespeare just from reading it, or from watching a poor performance. But it's very easy to add body language, emphasis, etc. to make it clear that something is meant sexually.

[Danukian]

Now what is intesting about your example is that MILF is immediately defined in the text. By contrast "beast with two backs" is not. In one case, the writer assumed the viewer would not know the term. In the other, the writer assumed he would know it. So your example argues that the phrase is not original with Shakespeare.

Okay, I'll admit that wasn't the greatest example, but on the same note, the first time I heard Adam Sandler say that someone was "doing the ol' hibbity-jibbity", it was not a phrase I'd heard before, but I definitely understood what he meant, due to the context he used it in. Same as some jackhole taking something someone just said and saying "I'd like to {WHATEVER} her {WHATEVER}, if you know what I mean..."

Othello's tryst with Desdemona was already established, as was Iago's jealousy, when Iago tells Brabantio [who was just woken from sleep in the middle of the night by Rodrigo to hear the news] that his daughter is making "the beast with two backs" with the Moor (Othello) while leering and rubbing his hands together in typical villain manner, and Brabantio takes offense to the foul language - it isn't very hard to figure out what was being said - any more than any of the innuendos in Shakespeare's other plays - notably Benedick's "I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes" from Much Ado About Nothing.

Likewise Red Hot Chili Pepper's song "Under the Bridge" is established to be about Hilal Slovak's heroin overdose - despite never the word heroine in the entire song - that didn't keep people from understanding the song, or the song staying in the top forty for a year - it was artistic inference.

[David Argall]

the first time I heard Adam Sandler say that someone was "doing the ol' hibbity-jibbity",
Now I can't track the phrase down too well, but it seems to go back to the 50's well before Sandler was born. So it gives us an example of how something can look original and be nothing of the sort.


and Brabantio takes offense to the foul language -
Foul language is almost by definition unoriginal. It may not be a sane standard, but the more original and indirect the way you say he is banging her, the less it is deemed foul language. Now I am dubious that Brabantio is concerned about the language as opposed to the very idea, but to the extent he is, he implies that two backs is a well known phrase.



it isn't very hard to figure out what was being said
True, what we have here is rather a dead parrot routine.
“'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the
bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!!”
Now with the exception of “ex-parrot”, all of these are well known ways to say “dead” and the exception, if one at all, is rather obviously the same. There is little or no originality in any one of these phrases, and none is wanted. The speaker is trying to make a message plain.
So when we go back to Othello, we find the villains are also trying to make a message plain, which means they use a series of well-known phrases. They would not use a phrase that would be subject to misunderstanding, and our phrase would be confusing the first time it is heard. Rather they would want this final statement to be the most obvious and decisive.

Consider an alternate possible scene. A nurse has the duty of being truthful to the father, and the duty of hiding the daughter’s escapades. Dad comes around and asks about daughter, who is going at it hot and heavy in the next room. Nurse says she is busy. When asked at what, she says she is making the creature with two backs, And dad wanders off, assuming everything is fine. Now we might assume the phrase is original because dad does not understand it and the audience gets to laugh at its superior brainpower.

So the use of “creature with two backs” in Shakespeare fits the model of being well known to everybody in the theater.

[Zolem]

Seriously? Shakespeare has coined (http://shakespeare.about.com/library/weekly/aa042400a.htm) more English words than any other person - I had a professor that used to say "The three most common sources for the origins of English words are Latin, German, and Shakespeare (http://everything2.net/index.pl?node_id=1384010)."

The list in the first link forgets to mention that he invented the word underware.

[Fawkes]

As noted here, the question is how many were in fact coined, and how many simply do not survive in older records. And in many cases, the oldest known record is obviously not the first use.

While it's true that some of Shakespeare's 'contributions' are misattributed, you can't deny that the man had a heavy influence on our language.