pimps and other lovers (was: Who's your daddy?)

[Laurence Horn]

At 6:02 AM -0400 10/15/04, Grant Barrett wrote:
>On Oct 14, 2004, at 23:34, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>>For "daddy," HDAS has, among other defs, "the finest, largest, or most
>>>striking example," "a man who is an important influence in a field,"
>>>and "the lover and protector of a prostitute; pimp."
>>
>>A prostitute has a "lover and protector"? This is the very antithesis
>>of the reality. Anyone who believes that this could possibly be true
>>clearly has no experience whatsoever of "the (sporting) life" or "the
>>game" and really, really, really needs to get out more. Prostitution is
>>not known as "white _slavery_" for no reason.
>
>I'd say "lover" ought not be taken romantically, but literally as a
>person who has sexual relations, since pimps do get free samples.
>"Protector" is also straightforward: a pimp guards his source of
>income. That's how the arrangement works. He protects her from the
>cops, other pimps, other prostitutes, and dangerous johns, and feeds
>whatever drug habit she has. In return, she gives him free samples and
>he takes a cut of what her money-maker brings in. It doesn't mean he's
>bringing her chicken soup and warm blankets.
>
I take the point but I also see this as an interesting shift in
literal meaning.  Literally, i.e. compositionally, a lover "ought" to
designate anyone who loves (someone).  This is attested early on for
the general sense of "love" (1340), the spiritual (agape) sense
(1300), and the erotic/romantic sense that's relevant here (1225).
In its usual heterocentric way (see our earlier thread on "love"),
the OED glosses this (sense 2a) as 'One who is in love with, or who
is enamoured of a person of the opposite sex'--another definition
that could use a bit of updating.  _Lover_ then came to be used
euphemistically for, as Grant puts it, 'a person who has sexual
relations with' another.  The first cite for this is the KJB:

1611 BIBLE Jer. iii. 1 Thou hast played the harlot with many louers.
1716 LADY M. W. MONTAGU Let. to Lady Rich 20 Sept., A woman looks not
for a lover as soon as she is married.

The OED gloss (2b) is 'One who loves illicitly; a gallant,
paramour'--not quite the more accurate current one that Grant gives
above (or simply 'sexual partner', as in the AHD and other modern
dictionaries), since inter alia it renders absurd the marriage manual
bromide that spouses should be lovers too, not to mention the
exclusion of any XX-chromosomal lover.

My point, though, is to call attention to the feeling (not just
Grant's, I'm sure) that this later development to the specialized
sexual sense, however we gloss it, has produced what we now take to
be the *literal* meaning of "lover".

Incidentally, sense 2c in the OED is more specifically 'pimp', cited
as U.S. slang from _Life in Sing Sing_, 1905:  _Lover_: a man who
receives support from a prostitute.

Larry