Sex ed and language

[Baker, John M.]

        For those of us not quite as au courant as Jesse, I will add
puton (apparently meaning vagina or a related term), as well as the
unfamiliar but obvious sucklers and banana.  And I'm kind of surprised
to see that the Yiddish example that made it is schmeckle.  Is it just
me, or does Yiddish have an unusually large number of terms meaning
"penis"?


John Baker



-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Jesse Sheidlower
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2010 11:23 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Sex ed and language

On Tue, May 25, 2010 at 11:20:38AM -0400, Laurence Horn wrote:
> At 1:01 AM -0400 5/25/10, Victor Steinbok wrote:
>>  A case of a teacher getting in trouble with the school for taking
the
>> language out of its shell. The teacher ultimately wins the case
against
>> the school. Some interesting comments from VC readers.
>>
>> http://bit.ly/bnubAC
>>
>> There is a link to the case glossary as well. Even for my sheltered
life
>> it appears to be rather limited.
>>
> Limited perhaps--but "tricycle"?

Yes, that was the one item on the list I hadn't heard of.

Jesse Sheidlower
OED

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