In and around the locker room there’s little talk of breasts, but lots of conversation about tits. Tits is a charming word that suggests many things. George Carlin once proposed a new crackerlike snack treat from Nabisco: “You can’t eat just one!” We prefer tits as the family dog, small, warm, cuddly, and benign—not unlike the little pooch sitting dutifully with his ear to the RCA phonograph. “Here tits! Nice tits! G-o-o-o-o-od tits!”
Historically, breasts began as teats (c.950), not becoming tits till around the seventeenth century, later spinning off the likes of titties (c. 1740) and diddies or diddeys (c.1780). Once they referred solely to the nipples (c. 1530); today they describe both soft protuberances situated on the thorax of the female.
Tits have been considered vulgar since the nineteenth century; it is now considered gauche to tell a lady what lovely tits she has. But it’s especially difficult to remember that in England, where when your mind is wandering, your tit is in a trance.
Lenny Bruce once found himself in such a state, fantasizing how he entered Eleanor Roosevelt’s bedroom and found her changing her clothes. “Haven’t I got beautiful tits?” she asks him. “You sure have,” he replies. “Do you work out or anything?”
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