when "intercourse" got funny

[Charles Doyle]

Or did users of the "medical" terms hope to shield the unlearned (includidng the young) from the earthy realities that they signify--sort of the way English translations of Greek texts used to lapse into Latin for the bawdy passages?

--Charlie
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---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2006 08:53:43 -0700
>From: "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
>Subject: Re: when "intercourse" got funny
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
>
>the movement of sexual terms from scholarly/medical/legal use to general polite use seems to have been  widespread in the late 19th/early 20th century: "masturbation", "penis", "testicles", "vagina", and a number of others seemed to have made the move.  is this a sign of a greater willingness to talk about sexual topics in polite company?
>
>arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)

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