Bad Language?

I left a comment on Rob’s TheHotDogTruck blog the other day, and it started a thread of thought which has led to this post. Now Rob is American and I am British, and making contact across continents is good for everyone and the internet is the best way to do it (if you can’t afford to become a frequent flyer). There is a ‘but’ here though…similar though our culture and language is, there are some vital differences. This got me round to thinking about a discussion I had in MyLot with a multi-lingual Italian (Luigi) – He was asking about slang expressions and the one I used on Rob’s blog is a brilliant example.
I told Rob he should name his new Hot Dog, the “Mutts’ Nuts”. OK it rhymes, but what’s the story…Now I am not completely sure I have got all the facts straight and it MAY be just a popular myth, but the story is certainly worth telling:
Some years ago, the makers or Meccano or Lego or some such toy, introduced a special set called the ‘Boxed Deluxe’. Now some wag with a penchant for Spoonerisms (prof Spooner was the guy who used to get his mords wuddled up) starting calling it the Dog’s Bollocks (apologies for the crudity to those who understand it - Bollocks is a quaint British expression meaning testicles…). Boxed Deluxe.... to Doxed Beluxe...to Dogs Bollocks, you get the idea?? From then on the Dogs Bollocks began to be used to indicate that something was top of the range…
More recently the phrase has transformed into the less crude Mutts (Dogs) Nuts (another quaint expression for testicles). So now you may know something new, for the British readers, the origin of a much-loved expression – for the non-British a unique insight into the living English language (and no doubt surprise regarding just how many quaint expressions the British can come up with to describe their genitals).
Apologies all round, I really am not given to publishing crudeness, but I hope you agree that the story justifies the use of bad language. So to Rob, I was trying to indicate that your Hot dog was indeed a top of the range item (Oh no...do I have to now go and find out where 'top of the range' came from...??)
Oh I remember the rest of the story now…. The OTHER boxed set that came out the same time as the Boxed deluxe, was the BOXED STANDARD – this then got mutated into the expression we now use to indicate something very ordinary and not at all special: BOG STANDARD…..