More on "moist"

[Alison Murie]

On Aug 10, 2009, at 11:19 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: More on "moist"
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>
> Googling books for <"fear of flying" moist> reveals, so to speak, a
> moist breast in Jong. But for <"fear of flying" "moist panties">,
> nothing.
>
> Joel
>
> At 8/10/2009 10:58 AM, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
>> On Aug 10, 2009, at 7:39 AM, Alison Murie wrote:
>>
>>> Erica Jong brought moist panties out into the open, so to speak, an
>>> image that many women probably found embarrassing, & thus offensive.
>>> I wonder if the moistness aversion didn't do a considerable leap
>>> after
>>> that time.
>>
>> anyone have quotes from Jong (with dates)?  (this seems not to have
>> been covered in earlier discussions of "moist".)
>>
>> an addendum:
>>
>> from back in 2007, from a commenter in a poll on cringe words here:
>>   http://jaylake.livejournal.com/1257691.html
>>
>>  Because of this association, I had a friend in high school who used
>> to call barely-pubescent girls "moisties."
>>  As in "Those moisties just tried to bum cigarettes off me."
>>
>> arnold
>>
~~~~~~~~~~
I was perhaps stretching things to attribute the actual expression
"moist panties" to Erica Jong.  (Chances are, no panties were
involved!)  What I was thinking was that the wetness of female lust,
which does figure in Jong's book,  might have been embarrassing enough
to many women that  "moistness"
itself could by association become offensive.   Just a WAG.
AM

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