I do (have some evidence)

Posted by Massimo Mazzucco on April 22, 2001

In Reply to: "No Balls" posted by R. Berg on April 22, 2001

Sexist culture is as old as some "Holy Scriptures" are, and a whole civilization stemmed out of those, some two thousand years ago. Long before, that is, Anglo-Saxon countries were to even be touched by the same.
It is then safe to assume that, if a given expression exists in the former cultures, it can certainly help explaining the meaning within the latter, which has obviously acquired it at a later time.
Well, I'm Italian, and such an expression not only exist in our language too, it is actually one of the most common in popular language.
And the expression, literally, goes (my translation, of course): "You don't have ENOUGH balls to..."
Now, since nobody usually gets more than your usual pair anyway, "enough" certainly refers to size, not amount.
And size coming necessarily with growth/age, it but confirms R. Berg's above intuition.

• I do (have some evidence) ESC 04/23/01