Latest issue of Maledicta

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

   A few days ago I received the latest issue of Maledicta  (#13; 1997-2004), reissued after a lapse of some eight years. This is a very welcome development, and anyone interested in seeing the publication continue might want to subscribe and possibly consider making a donation of whatever amount. The cost for the next issue of  Maledicta, #14,  is $20 (with $1.50 sales tax for California adresses only).  I have no financial stake in this venture.

    Maledicta is the only publication that focuses on curses/obscenities/etc.--the non-genteel part of language but one of its very important aspects. The present volume, for example, contains articles on insults in Romani, some terms for women at an Australian military academy, vocabulary from a West Indian's men's room, some Bulgarian insults, etc. etc. The volume--despite its scholarly treatments (with some less than scholarly items occasionally thrown in) --is strictly X-rated.  I once published an article in it myself
("In a Pig's Eye and Related Expressions"), and in my Etymology class I devote a lecture to Aman and Maledicta.

      Some years ago Aman was wiped out financially in a bitter divorce case, and in an introduction to the present volume he speaks openly of his bout with depression.  There may be a tendency to take the continued publication of his work for granted, but nothing is certain here. Reinhold (or "Rey," as he's often called) in any case has my best wishes, and I'll have a check in the mail by Monday.

Gerald Cohen
P.S. Aman's email address is aman at sonic.net, and his website is http://www.sonic.net/maledicta. His address is: Reinhold Aman/Maledicta Press/P.O. Box 14123/Santa Rosa, CA 95402-6123/USA.