mental masturbation

[Fred Shapiro]

"Midcult" is in OED.  The figurative citations for "masturbation" in the
OED include Byron's famous 1820 reference to Keats's writing as "a sort of
mental masturbation -- he is always f-gg-g his Imagination."

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Public Services     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
  and Lecturer in Legal Research            Yale University Press,
Yale Law School                             forthcoming
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
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