mental masturbation

[Benjamin Barrett]

A related term is wet dream used mainly by engineer types to refer to a
project made with no restraint or economy.

Benjamin Barrett

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society
> [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Arnold Zwicky
>
>
> during a chain of postings on the Out In Linguistics mailing
> list, the question came up of why "jerk-off", "jack-off", and
> "wanker" had come to be used as conventional insults, and i
> briefly mentioned attitudes towards masturbation, citing in
> addition the expression "mental masturbation" for
> unproductive, useless, or self-indulgent thinking and
> talking.  this led me to look at what the big dictionaries
> had to say about this expression (the answer seems to be:
> nothing), and about figurative uses of "masturbation",
> "masturbate", etc. (the answer seems to be: OED2 says a
> little).  hence the posting below.