to contracept

[Paul Frank]

Nothing unremarkable, since all sorts of nouns can and are turned into
verbs. But just for the record, the verb "to contracept" is not in the
OED. The string "to contracept" yields  6,040 Google results. I'd
never seen it before today.

"As Sacred Heart Major Seminary professor Janet Smith put it in The
Catholic World Report, 'We must note that what is intrinsically wrong
in a homosexual sexual act in which a condom is used is not the moral
wrong of contraception but the homosexual act itself. In the case of
homosexual sexual activity, a condom does not act as a contraceptive;
it is not possible for homosexuals to contracept since their sexual
activity has no procreative power that can be thwarted.' There's a
logic here, but it's the loopy follow-the-dots logic that led an
Egyptian imam to declare that a woman can work in the same office as
men who are not her relatives, as long as she breastfeeds them first."
  The Nation, December 13, 2010

"But some theologians argue that the condom was not being used to
contracept but rather to lower the risk of spreading AIDS."
  The Philadelphia Enquirer, November 28, 2010

According to the One Look Dictionary, "to contracept" is in the Random
House Dictionary.

Paul

Paul Frank
Translator
Chinese, German, French, Italian > English
Espace de l'Europe 16
Neuchâtel, Switzerland
paulfrank at bfs.admin.ch
paulfrank at post.harvard.edu

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