"Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Nov 5, 2004, at 9:16 AM, davemarc provided a "brain" website.

interesting development, suitable for energizing undergraduate classes
on semantics, language use, and language change.

the development seems to be entirely in the expressions "get/give
brain", which cover exactly the territory of "get/give head".  the
motivation for the development is surely concealment, but otherwise
it's just metonymy, with the brain part used to refer to the head whole
(well, strictly speaking, to the referent of "head" in the expressions
denoting oral sex).  not unlike, say, the development of the modern
russian word for 'head' from a (presumably) slang use of a word for
'skull' (borrowed from latin "calvus").

in fact, "get/give head" is a metonymy too, since what you receive from
or provide to your partner in oral sex is not really the whole head,
but just the mouth, in particular the lips and tongue.

and, finally, there's the shift from the count noun "head", denoting a
body part, to a mass noun, denoting an activity saliently involving
that body part.  another kind of metonymy.

arnold, omigod, it's *everywhere*