X marrying Y <> Y marrying X?
Laurence Horn
laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Wed Sep 12 00:31:54 UTC 2007
>I'm surprised by Monica's opinion of the BJ. I didn't know that she
>also considered it not to be sex. However, I know what every good
>Southerner knows, that unless a penis enters a vagina, it's NOT sex,
>which is f***king and nothing else.
well, that *would* have the nice side effect of making sodomy or
same-sex "sex" harder to prosecute...
> (When I was young enough to have a
>personal interest in the BJ, the average colored fellow was completely
>unaware of the term "BJ" or of its expansion. We *were* aware of the
>existence of the act, but only as a thing that someone could do, but
>which no one would do. I heard the phrase, "polish knob," used by
>black GI's, but that's it.)
I first read that as an ethnic joke, but of course that would be a
*P*olish knob
> Starr, being a home boy / good ole boy
>himself, would have known the same thing. Hence, I've always
>considered him to be about a hypocritical melon farmer. Mutatis
>mutandis, Starr would have testified exactly as Clinton did.
>
unlikely as he would have been to be either WJC's or ML's type...
LH
>On 9/11/07, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster: Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
>> Subject: Re: X marrying Y <> Y marrying X?
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> On 9/11/07, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>> > At 2:44 PM +0000 9/11/07, ronbutters at AOL.COM wrote:
>> > >One would think this would have applied to sodomy laws as well, but
>> > >I know of at least 2 cases of consentual sex in which the man was
>> > >found guilty and the woman was not.
>> >
>> > But as President Clinton taught us, "have sex with"--in at least one
>> > sodomy-relevant context--is not a symmetric predicate even if "marry"
>> > is. After all, he explained, Monica Lewinsky had sex with him, but
>> > not vice versa.
>>
>> Was that really how it all went down (so to speak)? My recollection
>> was that both parties tried to claim that the relevant acts didn't
>> constitute "having sex", so there was no asymmetry. Let's go to the
>> tape...
>>
>> -----
>> http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1998/10/03/archive/main19029.shtml
>>
>> LEWINSKY: We didn't have sex, Linda.
>>
>> TRIPP: Well, what do you call it?
>>
>> LEWINSKY: We fooled around.
>>
>> TRIPP: Oh.
>>
>> LEWINSKY: Not sex.
>>
>> TRIPP: Oh, I don't know. I think if you go to if you go to orgasm,
>> that's having sex.
>>
>> LEWINSKY: No, it's not.
>>
>> TRIPP: Yes it is.
>>
>> LEWINSKY: No it's not. It's
>>
>> TRIPP: It's not having
>>
>> LEWINSKY: Having sex is having intercourse.
>>
>> TRIPP: Oh, you've been around him too long. That's his
>>
>> LEWINSKY: Nuh-uh.
>>
>> TRIPP: rationale.
>>
>> LEWINSKY: That's well, that's my then I've had sex with a lot more people.
>>
>> TRIPP: Oh? (Laughing).
>>
>> LEWINSKY: Having sex is having intercourse. That's how most people would
>>
>> TRIPP: Oh, so (REDACTED) jobs and all of that don't count?
>>
>> LEWINSKY: They don't count.
>>
>> TRIPP: Oh? Well, see? You have to inform me
>>
>> LEWINSKY: Those are guys that you just fool around with.
>>
>> ... TRIPP: You mean it's less personal to give a (REDACTED) job than
>> to have intercourse?
>>
>> LEWINSKY: No, not necessarily. Sometimes. It depends.
>>
>> TRIPP: I guess it depends.
>>
>> LEWINSKY: It really depends.
>>
>> TRIPP: Yeah, I'm getting an education late in life.
>> -----
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>--
>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
>come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>-----
> -Sam'l Clemens
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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