when "intercourse" got funny

[neil]

Wasn't it Ralph Ginzburg who sent his mailings from intercourse, PA between
1962 and 1965-ish?


--Neil Crawford


> From: Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2006 08:43:26 -0400
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Re: when "intercourse" got funny
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: when "intercourse" got funny
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------>
-
>
> Wasn't the mid-1960s about the time when we started hearing the riddle
> (belonging to the genre that was being discussed on this list a few months
> ago), "What's a 4-letter word ending with '-k' that means 'intercourse'?"?
> The wit of the riddle depends on the word's having as its primary (or at least
> its first-thought-of) meaning "copulation" but also on the awareness of "talk"
> as a possible meaning.
>
> --Charlie
> ____________________________________________________
>
> ---- Original message ----
>> Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2006 05:30:46 -0700
>> From: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
>> Subject: when "intercourse" got funny
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>
>> Some months ago it was observed that there was a time when the word
>> "intercourse" could be used with a perfectly innocent meaning. Now, of
>> course, its denotation has narrowed so drastically that it is impossible to
>> use the word in nonsexual contexts without eliciting counterproductive,
>> muffled guffaws.
>>
>>  Just when the innocent era came to an end is not clear, but the benchmark in
>> my own memory is 1964 when mention of the Non-Intercourse Act of 1809 caused
>> such wordless mirth in my co-ed high-school American History class that Mr.
>> Callahan had to tell us to get serious, that's what they called it.
>>
>>  And yet, also in 1964, the novelist and critic George P. Elliott was
>> publishing the following sentence in which he attempted to characterize the
>> novel as a genre :
>>
>>  "The content of the [ideal] novel as here defined is intercourse among a few
>> credible characters and between them and the reader, who knows them by their
>> public actions, their intimate words, and their unrecognized impulses."
>>
>>  Elliott was born around 1920. Could the shift have occurred so late in his
>> life that he didn't realize the umhilarity in what he was writing ?  Or was
>> his mind clouded by his doctorate in literature ?
>>
>>  When did "intercourse" get funny ?
>>
>>  JL
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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