arm:leg =? penis:vagina

[Laurence Horn]

On Aug 16, 2011, at 3:38 PM, Ronald Butters wrote:

> JL is here just (in the classic sense) begging the question.
>
> In terms of  "everyday perceptions and emotive association," arms and hands and legs and feet are "more similar" in ways that penises and vaginas are not, but in terms of  "everyday perceptions and emotive associations" arms and legs are "less similar" in other ways that penises and vaginas are not.  Ordinarily, in everyday life we "emotively" have ass our #1 buddies "right-hand men" not "right-footed men," and most of us operate the keyboard in "everyday" life with appendages that are attached to the ends of our arms, not with our feet. Nobody gets athletes hand or charley horse of the arm, only athlete's foot and charley horse of the leg.. Penises and "vaginas" are similar, however, in their  "everyday perceptions and emotive associations" with carnal pleasure, urination, and venereal diseases.
>
>
Which was one of the points I was trying to make (perhaps too tersely) in my own previous message.  But as also mentioned there, the "limb" analogy works to Jon's benefit, not detriment, since that too is a case of moving up one level from the salient basic level to avoid specificity for one of a number of reasons.  It's not an accident that "limb" served as a replacement of "leg" in the Victorian era (even for "piano limbs"), or at least in our historical mythography of that era; it's essentially the "privates" of the jointed-appendage field.

LH

> On Aug 16, 2011, at 2:22 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
>> "Limb" is hardly comparable. Arms and legs are more similar in terms of
>> everyday perceptions and emotive associations than penises and vaginas. And
>> those are what we're talking about.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org