cods wollop

[Ricky Jones]

what is the meaning to cods wollop

[Tefler]

It means nonsense or drivel and is usually written as one word...codswallop. Its origin is unknown.

[SteveD]

Don't forget Codd's Bottles:

http://www.antiquebottles.com/codd/fame.html

[Quizmonster]

That's a nice urban myth, In A Pickle. Sadly, the scholars of The Oxford English Dictionary fail to give it house-room in their description of the word! The bad lemonade story may well be 'reputed', but in fact Tefler's correct.

[Quizmonster]

Dear In A, Yes...I love these old stories, too. Ones such as the belief that 'posh' is an acronym for 'port out starboard home' or that Coleridge wrote 'water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink'. (It isn't and he didn't.) Our language and urban mythology is awash with them.

Actually, 'wallop' as a colloquial name for beer dates back only to the 1930s and I don't believe it was ever applied to lemonade. Also, one old meaning of 'cods' was 'testicles', so I think that is a much more likely connection, in much the same way as we today use the b-word for those organs to mean 'nonsense', too. In fact, 'codswallop' itself is not recorded anywhere prior to the 1960s, as it happens. Had it beeen around in Victorian times, as claimed, I cannot imagine Dickens would not have used it in the mouth of one of his London characters. Cheers

[jno]

The line from Coleridge isn't exactly an urban myth, just a slight misquote (for 'Water, water, every where/ Nor any drop to drink') - so it's on a par with 'Play it again, Sam'.