OT? Sex ed and language

[Joel S. Berson]

At 5/25/2010 12:54 PM, George Thompson wrote:
>I dare say that the bit about allowing the students to use their own
>vernacular in this class come from the thought that there's no point
>in teaching about penises when the students only know mommy-talk
>words like "thingy" or "wee-wee".

A variant on this dilemma:  Dr. Richard H. Thorndyke was distressed
during his lecture on the psychology of sex at a convention of
psychiatrists in San Francisco, when he discovered kiddies in the
audience -- he felt he could not use the "Latinish words from the
academy" and, hoping to keep the children unaware, resorted to
infantile euphemisms, which of course mystified his adult audience.

Joel

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