Who's diddling and how?

[Wilson Gray]

Excellent point, Marc! That's probably why saying that "she fucked
him" - I don't recall when I first heard this construction, but it
probably wasn't any more recently that 1975 - still seems
discombobulatingly odd to me, when used in any kind of 'literal'
sense, and not to have anything to do with increasing the linguistic
equality of the sexes, despite the million or so times that I've heard
it.

-Wilson

On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 1:24 AM, Marc Velasco <marcjvelasco at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Marc Velasco <marcjvelasco at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Who's diddling and how?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> This has been a rather long thread, and I don't *think* anyone's mentioned
> this yet.
>
> WG writes:
>
>>IMO:
>>
>>"She fucked him [either by giving him some... "
>
>
> This may be a key distinction in semantic relations.  She can fuck him by
> letting him fuck her.  This can be especially true when used in a derogatory
> sense, e.g.,  "I can't believe she fucked him."   Who's diddling whom here
> (in the penetrator/-tee sense, or even in the "who's on top" sense) doesn't
> have that much to do with it, rather in this case, it's all about who's a
> willing participant.
>
> Yet more slipperiness from English's most adaptable word.
>
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