"Cock"

[Jonathan Lighter]

We could be approaching the dreaded "angels on a pin" stage of discussion
here.

The linguistically (rather than psychologically) significant issue isn't
whether anyone anywhere uses or used words in this way, it's whether any
speech community or statistically significant number of people does.

I'll grant that it seems unlikely that Doten, perhaps the only 19th C.
American to use blunt sexual terms frequently in a diary that both survived
and been published, was also coincidentally an atypical user of "cock" for
his place and time.

OTOH, the same, um, "bent" that led him to write the stuff might have
contributed to the eccentricity of a single example.

I don't know if the word appears elsewhere in his diaries.  Nor if it
appears anywhere in the zillion volumes of _My Secret Life_, the author of
which seems like a perfect candidate to have at least, um, dabbled in unisex
usage, at least once or twice.

JL

On Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 8:58 PM, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas at nb.net> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
> Subject:      Re: "Cock"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On 8/16/2011 7:20 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Jonathan Lighter<wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: "Cock"
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > But wait!
> >
> > One ex. doesn't make a speech community.  Perhaps Doten used the word one
> > way and his sweetie used it in the other. Thus the seeming unisex
> "meaning"
> > would simply be for the nonce.
> --
>
> But here's another example, from this list:
>
>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1102B&L=ADS-L&D=0&1=ADS-L&9=A&I=-3&J=on&d=No+Match%3BMatch%3BMatches&z=4&P=46462
>
> <<He found her cock, and his one too ....>>
>
> --
> > If that's the case, where are their descendants? ....
> --
>
> I haven't met any such users of unisex "cock" AFAIK. But that's not to
> say there are surely none.
>
> Some may find unisex "cock" a priori intuitively unlikely, and I find it
> so myself. Still, there is some indication that it exists/existed. It
> may be that here-and-now intuitions apply imperfectly to other milieux.
> In particular, I would expect little standardization of informal words
> which are very seldom uttered, and maybe in some times and places and
> social circles sex organs were not an everyday subject of casual
> conversation.
>
> For comparison, here is a reported case of "chinchin" (generally =
> "penis") recommended as a term for "vagina" by Japanese education
> authorities:
>
> http://www.wowasis.com/travelblog/?p=2911
>
> ... although I'm not 100% sure the source is 100% impeccable ....
>
> -- Doug Wilson
>
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