when "talk" was "f--k"

[Joel S. Berson]

Not sufficient evidence, of course, but I think I heard talk around
my middle school (say, First Form) years, about 1948.

Joel

At 9/27/2006 10:23 AM, you wrote:
>That's right. But as I remember it, the "talk" solution was more
>often (i.e., maybe from three out of the four teens I observed, the
>fourth being me) was greeted with puzzlement and skepticism.  So the
>joke must be rather older.
>
>   JL
>Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU> wrote:
>   ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
>Sender: American Dialect Society
>Poster: Charles Doyle
>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
> >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
>
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