Learn English – the etymology of “todger”

In rural America, which was an agrarian society originally, people did not have indoor plumbing and instead used an outhouse. They didn't have toilet paper either, so they had to use whatever was at hand. Corncobs were often used for the purpose. That's how they came to be associated with the rectum.

EDIT: What I said above was related to me by my grandfather, who grew up in a farming community in Illinois in the early 20th century. So it may be folk etymology. Etymonline.com differs somewhat, although I find their explanation bizarre (and note that it is qualified with the word "apparently" — apparently what?

cornhole synonymous with "do anal intercourse" by 1930s, apparently the reference is to a game played in the farming regions of the Ohio Valley in the U.S. from 19c., in which players take turns throwing a small bag full of feed corn at a raised platform with a hole in it.

FURTHER EDIT:

Etymonline offers no explanation for how "anal intercourse" became associated with an innocuous game. Was there a gay culture on the down-low in farming communities, one that staged mock games of what amounts to bean-bag tossing to cover up homosexual orgies? That seems ridiculous.

I'm not sure about the very origin of the saying and I'm inclined to think it's probably lost for ever.

What I can confirm though are the following points:

• Yes the Old English word for apple ("æppel") was a generic term for any kind of fruit. Just as the ancestor of deer (deor) meant any kind of wild animal (see German "Das Tier").

• This is not a phenomenon limited to English but is already true for instance in Greek where μῆλον pronounced "melon" was a generic term for any kind of fruit growing on trees. For instance μηλοπέπων ("melopepon" ripe fruit => melon), μῆλον Αρμενιακόν ("melon armeniakon": Armenian fruit => apricot), μῆλον Κυδώνιον ("melon kudonion": fruit from Cydonia => quince), μῆλον Μηδικόν ("melon medikon": fruit from Media/Assyria => citrus), μῆλον Περσικόν: fruit from Persia => persica => pesca => pêche => peach) and so on.

• There are even traces of this in Italian:

  • Since mela enters in the name of melo cotogno (the quince) even though it is abbreviated to cotogno. Allowing for a certain amount of confusion this is also the probable origin of the Spanish word melocoton (a kind of peach). The origin of "cotugno" being the city of Cydonia (Κυδωνία) a town on the Northern coast of Crete, believed to have been the origin of this fruit.
  • Another Italian fruit name containing mela is the melanzana (aubergine from melo-badingian - باذنجان "badingian" is the Arabic for the eggplant/aubergine and the etymology of the word aubergine itself).
  • Yet another Italian fruit name is melograno which means pomegranate (from Latin pomum "apple" granatus "seed" or French pomme-grenade from Granada in Spain).
  • As noted in Sklivvz's comment below, the word melone itself is formed from *melo* suffixed with the standard Italian augmentative "-one".

As for the association of the apple with a good health one can also cite:

• The Spanish saying "Sano como una manzana" (healthy as an apple).

• The etymology of pomade which started as a French word for topical/ointment made from apple (pomme in French) and fat. See also the Italian pomata.

A few references for proverbs

• The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs,
• Wikipedia,
• Wikiquote,
• phrases.org.uk.