What do you call a sex maniac?

[Charles Doyle]

As the OED briefly explains, the confusion of "satire" and "satyr" is quite old. It was a 16th-century commonplace that verse satire ought to sound "rough"--as if spoken by shaggy, goatish satyrs.

--Charlie



---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:25:14 -0500
>From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> (on behalf of Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>)
>Subject: Re: What do you call a sex maniac? >At 12:22 PM -0500 2/22/10, Eric Nielsen wrote:
>>How about:
>>
>>player
>>horndog
>>satyrist
>>
>
>I have the sense that the last of those may tend to be a victim of
>blocking by homonymy.  And I won't even comment on the second of your
>choices (except to note my relief at my 20-something son's decision
>to no longer incorporate "horndog" within his userid).
>
>Larry Horn
>

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