when "intercourse" got funny

[Baker, John]

        So, as suggested earlier, maybe WWI really was the turning
point.  "Intercourse" would not have been inherently funny in 1875,
because the sexual meaning had not yet achieved predominance, or at
least not the predominance it was later to have.  (This kind of
ambiguity, of course, can give rise to its own humor.)  It had achieved
this predominance around 1900, but people would still have remembered
the nonsexual meaning.  With another 15 - 20 years of sexual dominance,
though, "intercourse" would have the connotations you suggest.  We're
working somewhat by indirection here, since there is an ample supply of
both sexual and nonsexual citations of "intercourse" generally, but
reliably dated jokes are a little harder to track down.

        I think it's clear that Elliott intentionally or inadvertently
chose an outdated meaning of the word.

John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Jonathan Lighter
Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 12:49 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: when "intercourse" got funny

I believe the answer to Arnold's question is yes.  But I think
"intercourse" is funnier than the other words mentioned because not only
does it have two recognized meanings, they share ceratin semantic
features, the one sense being originally a narrowing of the other.

  That makes puns, intended and otherwise, a lot easier.

  My suspicion is that "intercourse" became really funny only when the
sexual sense had become truly primary and the wider sense familiar to
fewer and fewer speakers. Such speakers would almost have to start
laughing or squirming when they heard the word used in a nonsexual way
because

  a) the sexual sense could fit the context hilariously and/or

  b) since the sexual sense was the only one they knew, they would be
laughing nervously with embarrassment, surprise, puzzlement, etc.
Witnessing this could confirm onlookers in the belief that "now" the
word "really" had a sexual meaning only; all but the bravest would then
desist from using it in other contexts, thus making the sexual sense
even more primary.

  This hasn't happened with "congress" because the governmental sense is
predominant enough to keep the word from narrowing.  One might contrast
the career of "occupy," which eighteenth-cenury writers allegedly began
avoiding in droves because it had become sexualized; there was no social
counterbalance to keep the word innocent.  But eventually everybody
forgot the sexual meaning, which seems remarkable in itself.

  Since Paul Fussell served in WWII, his observation is good evidence
that "intercourse" was funny by then. As for the 1920s - well, the
documentation isn't in yet.

  George P. Elliott (culturally quite conservative, BTW) also served in
WWII; awareness of the intellectual readership of the _Virginia
Quarterly_ evidently did cloud his mind at the critical moment.

  Which is our gain.

  JL

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