"prostitude" = giggolo

ronbutters at AOL.COM ronbutters at AOL.COM
Tue Mar 30 16:24:00 UTC 2010


Of course he could be both a gigolo and a prostitute. And it is also common for people to grope for synonyms when speaking in public so as to avoid monotony. And when they do, they may be a bit casual about whether the terms used are totally apt or merely slightly metaphorical--particilarly when the terms are somewhat rare and/or vaguely scandalous.

Is it not at least somewhat contradictory to assert that someone else's coined term "should" be other than what was reported while ignoring the consensus of lexicographers about the accepted meaning of an established term of long standing?

------Original Message------
From: Laurence Horn
Sender: ADS-L
To: ADS-L
ReplyTo: ADS-L
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] "prostitude" = giggolo
Sent: Mar 30, 2010 11:54 AM

At 10:16 AM -0400 3/28/10, Amy West wrote:
>Spotted this in a wire story in the Boston Globe on Saturday:
>
>http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2010/03/27/first_legal_gigolo_leaves_nev_brothel/
>
>Brothel owner Jim Davis said yesterday that the Shady Lady Ranch had
>parted ways with the "prostitude'' who worked under the name Markus.
>
>Why the new for a new coinage? And is it just me, or do others think
>that this blend should be "prostidude"?
>
>---Amy West
>

And it now is.  At least on this morning's Mike and Mike show on ESPN
radio, the first News of the Weird segment involved our friend Markus
(who has evidently now returned to his day job in porn). He was
referred to once as a gigolo and three times by one of the Mikes
(Golic, I believe) as a "prostidude", not a "prostitude".  (Amy,
however, was not cited as an authority.)

LH

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list