New Zealand
There is a cock-up in Wellington with a misspelled sign.
It reads Old Bollock Rd. Many find it offensive. They have no problem with the correct name of Old Bullock Rd. The difference? Bollocks are testes. Bollocks are steers or male cattle without testes. That’s not much of a difference for crudity.
Maybe it’s the small small bent over walking man on the sign that adds the final insult to residents. To make this more hilarious there will be fighting over who gets possession of the sign when replaced. It’s too offensive to display, but is highly sought as a personal possession. Wellington City Council spokesman Richard MacLean said “This is a real balls-up.”
It was years before I realize that “bollocks” a.) meant testes and b.) was a crude exclamation. In the US the expression “all bollixed up” is frequently used, but its true meaning was disguised by the fact that “bollocks” wasn’t (isn’t?) a common word in the US, and it was further obscured by the fancy spelling “bollix”.
That said, if anyone put up a sign labeling a road “Bollock Street” or “Bollix Street” in the US , I think it’d be changed in record time.
Bollocks (or Bollix or bollox) is an essential part of the Dublin lexicon. I’m sure these are common elsewhere too.
He did in his bollocks = I sincerely doubt that he did
A load of bollocks = nonsense
It was a bag of bollocks = It wasn’t very good
