groin

[Jonathan Lighter]

Someone commented on [b at tak] a while back.  That's how I've been hearing it
(to my dismay) for a long time.

*"He hurt his left head" is impossible for me, though ?"He suffered a blow
to his left head" somehow seems slightly less impossible. Do cops say this?

Also, M-W defines "groin" as "the fold or depression marking the juncture of
the lower abdomen and the inner part of the thigh," which suggests that
everyone really does have two groins!  Who'd a thunk it?

My education, at least, must have been sadly inadequate.

JL

On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:47 PM, Charles Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: groin
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *"He hurt his left head"?  Surely not, Ron!
>
> ". . . left butt" might be a little different, since "butt" seems sort of
> like an abbreviation or synonym for "buttock" (which our students now, for
> some reason, all pronounce [b at tak] instead of [b at d@k]).
>
> --Charlie
>
>
>
> ---- Original message ----
> >Date: Mon, 10 May 2010 17:41:41 +0000
> >From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> (on behalf of
> ronbutters at AOL.COM
> )>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >I didn't understand the problem at first because it seemed perfectly
> natural to me to interpret this as meaning 'left side of his groin'.  I'm
> not sure why this is so easy for me, but  "left head" and "left butt" elicit
> the same (Gricean?) response.
>
> >Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> >Date:         Mon, 10 May 2010 12:07:41
> >To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >Subject:      Re: [ADS-L] groin
> >
> >An inveterate jock and sports fan myself, I would never refer to a
> ruptured testicle as a "groin injury." (I wouldn't even dare think about one
> of those!) A groin injury is a pulled muscle in the area of a man's (or, I
> suppose, a woman's) sole groin.  The question was whether it's idiomatic to
> speak of a person's having TWO groins (left and right).
> >
> >--Charlie
> >
> >
> >
> >---- Original message ----
> >>Date: Mon, 10 May 2010 10:31:59 -0400
> >>From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> (on behalf of
> Alice Faber <faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU>)>
> >>On 5/10/10 10:20 AM, Charles Doyle wrote:
> >>> In the sports section of yesterday's newspaper, an Atlanta Braves
> outfielder was said to be suffering from an injury to his "left groin." The
> phrasing immediately moved me to wonder, "How many does his have?" I
> certainly would have said the "left side of his groin."
> >>>
> >>> Evidently, however (judging from the OED attestations of the noun), in
> the 16th century and earlier one could have multiple groins . . . .
> >>>
> >>
> >>In sports-injury-speak, a groin injury is an injury to a lower-abdominal
> >>muscle or tendon, so the left or right business would refer to which
> >>side of the pelvis the injured muscle attaches to. (/anatomical
> handwaving)
> >>
> >>What lay observers like us would normally think of as a groin injury is,
> >>instead, referred to more descriptively as "a (nearly-)ruptured
> >>testicle". See
> >><
> http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/Video-Sami-Salo-reportedly-suffers-ruptured-tes?urn=nhl,239744
> >
> >>for current examples.
> >>--
>
> >>==============================================================================
> >>Alice Faber
>
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