eye dialect was RE: nekkid

Wed Mar 16 14:48:45 UTC 2011

I've always felt that the editorial switch from "come" to "cum" (I'm leaving
illiterates and etymology skeptics out of it) was meant to make the word
sexier by making it look special.

Fewer irrelevant associations.

Except for Latinists.

JL

On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 11:33 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: eye dialect was RE: nekkid
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 8:07 AM -0400 3/16/11, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >Maybe I'm confused here. If Larry is saying that the spelling "cum" first
> >appeared as a noun, that's very probably correct.
>
> That's what I'm saying, plus the suggestion that the category shift
> was part of the motivation for the use of a distinct ear-spelling,
> and that the intrinsically nominal status of "cum" may have helped
> motivate the innovative regular preterit, "cummed".
>
> >
> >What I was saying was that the verb "come" clearly antedates the noun.
> >Apparently by centuries.
>
> Nobody questions that.  Sorry for any unclarity.
>
> LH
>
> >
> >On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 8:40 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu
> >wrote:
> >
> >>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >>  -----------------------
> >>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>  Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> >>  Subject:      Re: eye dialect was RE: nekkid
> >>
> >>
>
> >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >>  At 1:01 PM -0400 3/15/11, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >>  >I must be getting, um, old because I've never seen or heard "comed/
> >>  cummed."
> >>  >
> >>  >The verb certainly antedates the noun. See HDAS.
> >>
> >>  I did, now that I can, but I'm not convinced on the point at issue.
> >>  There's no evidence at the "come" entry ("cum" just directs us to
> >>  "come") that the verb realized as "cum" antedates the noun realized
> >>  as "cum".  Indeed, all the cites for the verb [k^m] are spelled
> >>  "come", while several of the noun cites are indeed "cum", including
> >>  evocative WW2 military slang cites you include for 'mayonnaise, salad
> >>  dressing'.  (Probably promoted by the powerful oil-and-vinegar lobby.)
> >>
> >>  LH, noticing a new-to-me use of "come" as a derived transitive
> >>  (causative) verb (HDAS s.v. "come", v., 1(c): 'to induce orgasm in',
> >>  with the 1973 cite "Wail, I comed that little old gal, then I crawled
> >>  off." I'd have thought "brought (off)" would have gone down better in
> >>  that context.)
> >>
> >>  >The, um, underlying idea
> >>  >appears to be to "arrive to one's purpose," OED 4a and related defs.
> (Cf.
> >>  >also, ahistorically, def. 16.)
> >>  >
> >>  >JL
> >>  >On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 12:44 PM, <ronbutters at aol.com> wrote:
> >>  >
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> >>  >>  -----------------------
> >>  >>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>  >>  Poster:       ronbutters at AOL.COM
> >>  >>  Subject:      Re: eye dialect was RE: nekkid
> >>  >>
> >>  >>
> >>
> >>
>  >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>  >>
> >>  >>  Magna cum laude will continue to get puerile snickers for a long
> time
> >>  to
> >>  >>  come.
> >>  >>
> >>  >>  Sent from my iPad
> >>  >>
> >>  >>  On Mar 15, 2011, at 12:17 PM, Jonathan Lighter <
> wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
> >>  >
> >>  >>  wrote:
> >>  >>
> >>  >>  > Unless my sources have misled me seriously, English "cum" didn't
> >>  >>  > become iconic till the 1980s.
> >>  >>  >
> >>  >>  > "Kum" is far newer - and better because it allows for the
> continued
> >>  >>  teaching
> >>  >>  > of Latin in our schools without constant distraction. And
> discipline.
> >>  >>  >
> >>  >>  > JL
> >>  >>  >
> >>  >>  > On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 12:26 PM, Laurence Horn <
> >>  laurence.horn at yale.edu
> >>  >>  >wrote:
> >>  >>  >
> >>  >>  >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >>  >>  >> -----------------------
> >>  >>  >> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>  >>  >> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> >>  >>  >> Subject:      Re: eye dialect was RE: nekkid
> >  > >>  >>
> >>  >>  >>
> >>  >>
> >>
> >>
>  >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>  >>  >>
> >>  >>  >> At 2:38 PM +0000 3/15/11, Charles C Doyle wrote:
> >>  >>  >>> Similarly with the proud University of Georgia "Dawgs"
> >>  ('bulldogs').
> >>  >>  >>>
> >>  >>  >>> Not just "kum" but "cum" for 'male ejaculate' must have
> originated
> >>  >>  >>> as eye-dialect--and "cum" has become almost the accepted
> >>  >>  >>> "scientific" term!
> >>  >>  >>
> >  > >>  >> There is also the homonymy avoidance motivation at work.  Do we
> know
> >>  >>  >> if "cum" began as a noun or a verb? Neither is in Farmer &
> Henley,
> >>  >>  >> and I don't have JL's cumpendium on me at the moment and the OED
> >>  just
> >>  >>  >> has the Latin preposition.  The orthographic distinction does
> appear
> >>  >>  >> to be here to stay--I'm surprised no one has registered .cum as
> a
> >>  >>  >> domain suffix for porn sites.
> >>  >>  >>
> >>  >>  >>> There's a folk belief (at least) that in the South
> "misspellings"
> >>  >>  >>> with "K" used to signal commercial concerns that were
> sympathetic
> >>  to
> >>  >>  >>> the Ku Klux Klan (n.b. the spelling "Klan").  E.g. "Krispy
> Kreme."
> >>  >>  >>> I doubt if that's true any longer.
> >>  >>  >>>
> >>  >>  >>
> >>  >>  >> And then, from the other side of the ideological continuum,
> there is
> >>  >>  >> (or at least was) "Amerika".  Not to mention "AmeriKKKa".
> >>  >>  >>
> >>  >>  >> LH
> >>  >>  >>
> >>  >>  >>> ________________________________________
> >>  >>  >>> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on
> behalf
> >>  of
> >>  >>  >>> James A. Landau <JJJRLandau at netscape.com> [
> JJJRLandau at NETSCAPE.COM
> >>  ]
> >>  >>  >>> Sent: Tuesday, March 15, 2011 10:02 AM
> >>  >>  >>>
> >>  >>  >>>
> >>  >>  >>> The sports section of the Philadelphia Inquirer is fond of
> >>  referring
> >>  >>  >>> to the Philadelphia Eagles football team as the "Iggles".  This
> is
> >>  >>  >>> not done to sneer at the literacy of local football fans but
> rather
> >>  >  > >>> to give a feeling of "yes, we're local" to the readers.
> >>  >>  >>>
> >>  >>  >>> If you ever see in print male ejaculate referred to as "kum",
> you
> >>  >>  >>> can be sure you are reading a low-brow girlie magazine.
> >>  >>  >>>
> >>  >>  >>> Perhaps not really eye dialect, but advertisers sometimes
> >>  >>  >>> deliberately use phonetic spellings as eye-catchers, e.g.
> "Ken-l
> >>  >>  >>> Ration".  "LUV" was used by at least two different firms, one
> for a
> >>  >>  >>> brand of disposable diapers and one for an infant's car seat.
> >>  >>  >>>
> >>  >>  >>> Occasionally such a deliberate misspelling will catch on.
> >>  >>  >>> Specifically "lite" was originally used (to the best of my
> >>  >>  >>> recollection) as a come-on for somebody's sugar-free soft drink
> but
> >>  >>  >>> has caught on to mean any diet drink, or more generally a diet
> >>  food,
> >>  >>  >>> and even by extension something with less than the normal
> >>  >>  >>> caloric/intellectual/whatever load, e.g. sneering at someone's
> >>  >>  >>> publication as "American Speech lite".
> >>  >>  >>>
> >>  >>  >>>   - James A. Landau
> >>  >>  >>>
> >>  >>  >>> PS:  I received a "Nigerian" e-mail (actually it was from
> Russia)
> >>  >>  >>> soliciting me for a "mutual preposition".
> >>  >>  >>>
> >>  >>  >>> _____________________________________________________________
> >>  >>  >>> Netscape.  Just the Net You Need.
> >>  >>  >>>
> >>  >>  >>> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>  >>  >>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>  >>  >>>
> >>  >>  >>> ------------------------------------------------------------
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> >>  >>  >>
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> >>  >>  >
> >>  >>  >
> >>  >>  >
> >>  >>  > --
> >>  >>  > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle
> the
> >>  >>  truth."
> >>  >>  >
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> >>  >
> >>  >
> >>  >--
> >  > >"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> >>  truth."
> >>  >
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> >
> >
> >--
> >"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
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