Generalized Whore

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:10 PM -0400 6/19/05, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 18:49:00 -0700, Jonathan Lighter
><wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM> wrote:
>
>>At the touch of a button, one can Google up about 100,000 hits for "crack
>>whore" ( a woman - later anyone - so addicted as to perform sex acts in
>>return for crack cocaine).
>
>Even though "crack whore" is just an extension of the traditional sense of
>"whore", I can see how it might have influenced the formation of other "X
>whore" compounds where substance X is the object of a desperate obsession.
>
>I forgot another common relative of "attention/publicity/camera whore":
>"fame-whore".  That term often appears in online discussions of reality TV
>stars and celebutantes like Paris Hilton (there's also the ppl. n./a.
>"fame-whoring").
>
And then there's "money whore", which has 781 google hits--a
relatively small number, but interesting because it's *not* a simple
retronym, despite the fact that a traditional whore trades his/her
body for money.  A "money whore" (e.g. George Lucas in the first
googled instance) is someone accused of selling himself/herself out
metaphorically for money.

Here's an interesting application of the concept of extended "X whoredom":

http://sportsfrog.com/swamp/viewtopic.php?t=859
And why do people pick on athletes for everything they do? Keep
quiet, and you're not socially responsible. Open your mouth, and you
get ripped for whatever you say. Take the money, and you're a money
whore. Take a pay cut for a contender/champion, and you're a ring
whore. Stay on the same team for less than you may get elsewhere, and
you're obscure and people wonder when you're going to get out of
there and play on a better or more publicized team (i.e. Vlad
Guerrero, Mike Sweeney).

Can we, just once, let people make their own decisions without ripping them?

Larry