Choad/Chode--origin?

[Joanne M. Despres]

On 12 Sep 2003, at 8:20, James Smith wrote:

> Who are you trying to kid?  We're talking about
> hormone-crazed youth.

Yeah, but these were hormone-crazed youth with a jones for the
transcendant.  Would someone serious enough about eastern
religion to have traveled all the way to India be inclined to use
smutty street talk to describe the sex act?  It seems more likely to
me that they'd go the euphemizing route.

Of course, we can speculate and psychologize until the cows
come home, but without solid linguistic backing it's all basically
just an exercise in creating fantasy scenarios.  There needs to be
something more than plausibility behind a hypothesis before the
OED (or Merriam, or any reputable dictionary publisher) takes it
seriously.

Joanne
Joanne M. Despres, Senior Editor
Merriam-Webster, Inc.
jdespres at merriam-webster.com
http://www.merriam-webster.com