More on "punk"/spunk

[neil]

on 14/6/05 11:00 pm, Wilson Gray at wilson.gray at RCN.COM wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <wilson.gray at RCN.COM>
> Subject:      Re: More on "punk"
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> On Jun 14, 2005, at 3:57 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
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>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>> Subject:      Re: More on "punk"
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>> At 12:17 PM -0700 6/14/05, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>> "Punk" is another one of those homosexual words that originally
>>> referred to women.
>>>
>>> JL
>>
>> specifically = 'harlot' (so Farmer & Henley), e.g in Measure for
>> Measure (v.i):
>>
>> She may be a punk, for many of them are neither maid, widow, nor wife.
>>
>> Similarly Johnson, Chapman, Congreve, etc.
>>
>> Larry
>
> "Punk" is used as a word for "prostitute" in the book, "My Secret
> Life," by "Walter." In an earlier discussion of "punk," I have a vague
> memory of someone suggesting or stating that "My Secret Life" is, in
> some sense, not real. FWIW, Harvard owns one partial and one complete
> copy of the original, actual, published-in-The-Netherlands version of
> this work. Of course, the comment may have been that MSL is fiction and
> not autobiography. That is certainly a possibility and I have no
> opinion on that.
>
> BTW, in Britspeak, does "spunk" still mean "semen"?
>
> -Wilson Gray
>
Oh yes. As both noun, as well as verb = ejaculate.

Of course, historical 'literary' usage (presumably male authored) also has
it as vaginal sexual secretions:

'Then I beheld her splendid cunt in all its magnificence of size and
hairiness. I sank on my knees and glued my lips to the oozing entrance, for
she was one who spent profusely, her cunt had the true delicious odour, and
her spunk was thick and glutinous for a woman.'
--Anon, 'The Romance of Lust', London, 1873-76 [Grove press, NY, 1968, 410]

and also as to orgasm (f):

'Then with a shuddering groan, her hands slowed between her thighs and with
convulsive kicks she too spunked down her warm thighs.'
--Pearson groves, 'Juvenile lead', Pall Mall Press, Paris, 1957 [page number
lost]

--Neil Crawford