The m-word

[Jonathan Lighter]

That's pretty much right, Wilson. It was also true in my own youth, and in Chaucer's youth too, according to a reputable slang dictionary.

  It should be observed, though, that the modern sense of "sexy" could occasionally be heard in the 1930s. James T. Farrell used it a couple of times.  Paul Muni in _Scarface_ (1932) takes a gander at lissome Karen Morley and sez, "That's hot!"  His sidekick replies informatively,"That's Poppy."

  Reason:  popularity of "hot" in the '20s to mean great or exciting, though more often in negative constructions, i.e., "not so hot."  And cf. "hot mama."

  But the current nuance wasn't a big deal till ca1980.

  JL

  Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: The m-word
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My wife suggests that the women be asked about "hot," after I
mentioned to her that, in my lost youth, "hot," when applied to a
woman, meant that she had the female equivalent of a boner, i.e. was
sexually aroused to the point of being moist and ready for sexual
intercourse, or was infected with gonorrhea. It had nothing whatsoever
to do with physical attractiveness.

-Wilson

On 10/25/07, Charles Doyle wrote:
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> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Charles Doyle
> 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
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