cundrum

[Wilson Gray]

Reminds me of a hapax that I once <har! har!> heard: "cunion"
("cunnion?"). Rhymes with "bunion," in any case.

-Wilson

On 11/29/06, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      cundrum
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> This nonstandard variant of "condom" didn't make it into HDAS 1 because it isn't slangy enough. Its absence from OED, however, prompts this post:
>
>   1886 in _Southwestern Reporter_ I 251: He claims she yielded this objection on his telling her he could use an instrument for prevention called a "cundrum."
>
>   1973 Kenneth Burke in William H. Rueckert, ed. _Letters from Kenneth Burke to William H. Rueckert_ (West Lafayette, Ind.: Parlor Press, 2003) 202: In intercourse sans cundrum.
>
>   2004 Ben Gazzara _In the Moment_ (N.Y.: Carroll & Graf) 98 [ref. to ca1941]: He told me...that I should only use a "cundrum" called Ramses because they...didn't break. We didn't know how to pronounce "condom" in those days.
>
>   JL
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Cheap Talk? Check out Yahoo! Messenger's low PC-to-Phone call rates.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Sam Clemens

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org