The m-word

[neil]

> From: Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2007 11:42:23 -0400
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: The m-word
>
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Subject:      The m-word
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> A student in my Shakespeare class announced that the word "moist" (which I had
> uttered to describe Egypt in _Antony & Cleopatra_) is offensive to women. Some
> of the other women in the class concurred (not hostilely--just as a matter of
> information for a clueless male professor). I was somewhat flabergasted, and
> nobody would articulate a reason for the offensiveness--except for one male
> student's eventual suggestion that the word reminds women of sexual arousal.
> That association is not at all beside-the-point of my description of Egypt in
> the play--but why would such a connotation make the word offensive per se? As
> far as I could ascertain, "damp" and "wet" don't carry whatever stigma
> attaches to "moist." What am I missing here?!
>
> --Charlie

Just as long as you're not talking about oysters...

Check out www.male 101.com/synonyms [if it's still active] where in 2003
'moist oyster' was listed as a synonym for the vulva/vagina.

--Neil Crawford

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