bases

[Joe Pickett]

One of the things that interests me is that the system persists, apparently with
different values in their placeholders, despite the many social changes that
have occurred since the 1950s.  My kids (including my 8 year old) know a lot
more about sex--than I did at their age(s. They confront sex as a subject of
humor and as topic with much greater frequency than I did in the 1960s.  Talk
about sex is open and extensive in our society.

But nonetheless the system persists. It is part of the wherewithal that my older
son uses as he ventures into the world of sexual relations and learns to talk
with others about sex.

It must be that the system--which is really a series of euphemisms--facilitates
discussion of a subject that remains delicate in some social contexts (the
school lunchroom?), and about which one must never show unfamiliarity, for fear
of being seen as naive and out of it.  The semantic fuzziness of the bases could
be a great boon for kids who really can't speak from experience and aren't sure
they know what they are talking about.  It may well be that for others (as Greg
Downing suggested) it provides an easy way to give an exaggerated sense of what
they have done.

Of course in my experience you don't need a baseball diamond to do that.








Peter Richardson <prichard at LINFIELD.EDU> on 05/26/2000 11:11:18 AM

Please respond to American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>

To:   ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
cc:    (bcc: Joe Pickett/Trade/hmco)
Subject:  Re: bases



Well, times do change. As far as I recall (50s, Illinois), first base was
getting a date in the first place and second base was the ultimate: a
kiss. Other bases were contemplated, to be sure, but were so far beyond
the realm of the likely, the possible, or the probable as to be
unattainable. Still, families did form and prosper, by some miracle. Maybe
the whole process was short-stopped by utter fear of the "bad
reputation"--and on both sides.

And that's the 1950s, not the 1850s. Yike.

PR