Archive for September, 2013
It’s obviously time to ask for the facilities, the lavatory (or the abbreviated lav)—an old nineteenth-century word from the Latin lavatorium, “a place for washing.” Hoping to disguise your mission, you might request the place where you cough (c. 1920). Speaking more directly, the shithouse (19thC), the can (c. 1900), or the head. Why the head, when “tail” is more appropriate? It could be from the manner with which many relate to authority—a political statement of sorts. Or, as is more likely, from the location of the ship’s facilities—in the “bulkhead.”
When all is said and done, most Americans need room to do it. Today’s favorites include washrooms (c. 1878), bathrooms (c. 1850s), from a time when the necessary fixtures joined the bath, and powder-rooms. The little girl’s room (c. 1940s) is still with us today, though its counterpart, the little boy’s room, is seldom referred to. Dual-room names continue to dominate the landscape of restaurants nationwide: His ’n’ Hers, Gents and Ladies, Gulls and Buoys, Lads and Lassies, and Braves and Squaws (Ugh!).
Many prefer the restroom. But if you asked for it in England, your hosts would likely point out the cloak-room or show you to the bedroom. Perhaps you thought yourself couth by not asking for the toilet (c. 1820s–30s), or one of its mutant off-spring the toidy or toy-toy (20thC), but the toilet still works fine there among the working-class.The toilet derives from the French toilette, the diminutive of toile, the cloth once covering the table on which sat one’s preparations, making it all very acceptable.
Read more – http://bawdylanguage.com
It was easy for the Church to convince people that sex was a dirty business. Reinforced by the proximity of the sexual parts to, and their close association with, the process of elimination of waste, it was only a matter of time before sex came to be identified with the elimination process—a way of transferring from one individual to another such waste matter as may have accumulated in one’s body.
Inter faeces et urinem nascimur.
We are born between fees and urine.
—St. Augustine
Church authorities loved the image. It was perfect. Man eliminated into woman, and her vagina was the repository for his filth. This even sanctioned the role the prostitute played, likening her to a common sewer who helping carry away man’s garbage. Chaucer’s Parson wrote of whores “that must be likened to a common gong (a toilet) where men purged their ordure.”
The theme was picked up in the language. Especially popular during the 1930s was the practice of getting one’s ashes hauled.11 A not unnatural thing, for when fires are raging, ashes are the natural residue. Someone has to remove them. After all, neatness counts, even in sex. It’s another bond between sexual release and personal hygiene.
You’ll find variations of this in contemporary blues songs, with references to how my garbage can is overflowing and requests to please empty my trash. We speak of sex as easing oneself (20thC), and doing one’s business (20thC). Some even refer to it as number three (20thC), an apparent also-ran behind numbers one and two, pissing and shitting respectively.
Hundreds of years after Chaucer’s Parson, a boy in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar described his first sexual experience with a whore being “as boring as going to the toilet.” Phillip Wylie in Opus 21 recounts how books of advice for young men attaining the age of desire sought to dissuade them from seeking the company of prostitutes. They employed not the toilet but the bathtub to make their point, asking indignantly, “Would you walk into a cheap hotel, find that the stranger before you had left the tub filled with dirty bath water, and immerse yourself in it?”
Sex is great, but it’s really difficult to keep it clean.
Read more – http://bawdylanguage.com
Let one and all know that the fly on the wall at the secret meeting between Putin and Obama was none other than yours truly, the honorable Celestial Bawdy. I am privileged to report that a key part of the recent agreement between the two leaders was a secret pact called “Macho is Mucho.” This secret pact centered on which of the two leaders had the most sexual charisma.
The one winning the contest would exercise leverage over the other when it came to determining the terms of the Syrian disarmament. After an arm wrestling challenge and a poker game, each had their penis assessed by an independent authority, the world-renowned penisologist, Dr. Hans On of the Viagra Institute in Oslo. After fully assessing all key factors, including length, girth, beauty marks, and precision of circumcision, he came to the conclusion that both pricks were equal in every important regard.
Dairy authority Dmitri Vasilovich was the judge of the man-boob evaluation. The results are still pending, but it appears that Putin is headed for a 32 C cup; having been inspired by a young lady who flashed him a few months ago in the Netherlands ( See picture). Independent evaluators from the UN are concerned that Putin secretly visited Silicon Valley last month for implants. Russian authorities deny this, calling such allegations “malicious slander characteristic of the flat-chested imperialists.”
Reports are now circulating that Putin has challenged Obama to a “Fuck-Off.” This is a Russian tradition dating back several hundred years in which contestants are dropped off in a whore house for 24 hours, given a box of condoms, a bottle of Evian and told to have sex with as many women in the house as possible in the course of one day. The one with the highest score wins. No to worry. Either way, the world gets fucked!
Signing off from Moscow, this is your official fly on the wall and the last word on sex wherever and whenever it is happening—the one, the only, Dr. Celestial Bawdy. Others may work for world peace, but it’s only I who truly know how to get a piece.
Directly from the desk of Dr. Bawdy – Bawdy News
The first affair occurred when man discovered the wifely function was to raise a family and administer the household, but for pure pleasure and excitement he had to look elsewhere.
The Old Testament sanctioned such activity with the concubine(from the Latin concubitus, “lying together”), who was to serve as a man’s consort on a regular and exclusive basis. Man later broke the monogamy with his mistress, inamorata, or paramour (14thC, originally two words, par and amour, hence “being in love through or by sexual love”), though there was a time when it described spiritual love, as in the medieval poem where Mary spoke of Jesus as “myne own dere sonne and paramour.” On a less lofty plane, she became his sparerib, side dish, tackle (17thC), and flame.
Verbally, she always did far better than the wife. The wife was relegated to a conveniency (17th–19thC), an ordinary (17th–20thC), a comfortable (17th–20thC), and, at times, an impudence (17th–20thC). It was conceded on occasion that she was a necessary, but that term, along with a convenience, also referred to a water closet, putting her in somewhat less than distinguished company. The mistress, though at times deemed peculiar (17th–19thC), has always been his natural and his pure (both 17th–19thC) and — when counted among the very best—his purest pure (17thC).
But it’s been downhill ever since. When man started playing for keeps, she became a kept woman (18th–20thC) and he, her keeper, leaving us with images of a caged female held at bay with chair and whip. Her glory faded further with the appellation, a wife in watercolors (c. 1780–1840), “like their enjoyments, easily effaced or dissolved.” Her slide continued as the brazen hussy, finally hitting rock bottom in the twentieth century as the other woman and a little on the side.
Faithfully Yours
Conjugal infidelity is not a subject you casually fool around with (mid 20thC). To be caught cheating (20thC) is unspeakable and a topic of criminal conversation (19thC). Some even dare call it treason (17thC), fleshly treason, or smock treason
Most adults prefer practicing adultery, but even with practice it’s still hardly adult behavior—in fact, it’s not even adolescent. “Adult” and “adolescent” both derive from the Latin ad and alere, “to nourish or raise toward maturity.” Adultery, on the other hand, comes from ad and alterare, “to change into something else,” as to corrupt another, or from ad and alterum, “to turn to another.”
Currently, adultery itself has been badly corrupted. It began when Mencken dubbed it “democracy applied to love,” culminating in today’s swingers and what some call open marriage (c. 1970s).
So too with the word adult. We label more and more of our contemporary activities adult, though they have become increasing puerile. It’s enough to drive one to an adult-entertainment zone for some adult reading matter.
Read more – http://bawdylanguage.com
Most people are familiar only with fuck’s violent side; few appreciate its complex character. Fuck is nature’s all-purpose word, able to express every mood and capture the tenor of every occasion.
The only thing it isn’t is simple, as with this fuckin’ business.
Given the proper inflection, the word can express an entire range of sentiments:
Confusion: What the fuck?
Despair and dismay: Fucked again, or truly fucked.
Liberation: What the fuck!
Helplessness: Fucked by the fickle finger of fate.
Concern: Doesn’t anyone give a fuck?
Surprise, dismissal, or Oneself—Fuck me!
rejection, with the help Inanimate object—Fuck it!
of various objects: Helpless creature—Fuck a duck!
Futility: What the fuck? or Who gives a fuck anyway?
Absence of meaningful Fucking around
action: or Fucking off.
Though it is anatomically imfuckingpossible, people constantly encourage others to go fuck themselves. They criticize books such as this as unfuckingbelieveable, irrefuckingsponsible, outfuckingrageous and unfuckingrespectable — though the author is just fucking with their minds. Knowing not what else to do, they offer to end the confusion by simply getting the fuck out of here.
Read more – Bawdy Language book
