"prostitude" = giggolo

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 11:54 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> At 10:16 AM -0400 3/28/10, Amy West wrote:
> >Spotted this in a wire story in the Boston Globe on Saturday:
> >
> >http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2010/03/27/first_legal_gigolo_leaves_nev_brothel/
> >
> >Brothel owner Jim Davis said yesterday that the Shady Lady Ranch had
> >parted ways with the "prostitude'' who worked under the name Markus.
> >
> >Why the new for a new coinage? And is it just me, or do others think
> >that this blend should be "prostidude"?
>
> And it now is.  At least on this morning's Mike and Mike show on ESPN
> radio, the first News of the Weird segment involved our friend Markus
> (who has evidently now returned to his day job in porn). He was
> referred to once as a gigolo and three times by one of the Mikes
> (Golic, I believe) as a "prostidude", not a "prostitude".  (Amy,
> however, was not cited as an authority.)

As I said in the Language Log post, "prostidude" (or "prosti-dude") is
the accepted blend and "prostitude" was merely an error by the
Associated Press.

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2212


--Ben Zimmer

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