"moist"

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Sat Nov 5 04:08:39 UTC 2011


On Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 9:21 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> "Things hot and dry---the sun, for example---were considered
> masculine, while things cold and moist---like the moon, or Western
> regions of the earth---were thought of as feminine." Â [p. 38] Â And:
>
> "At the heart of the humoral tradition lay the teaching that
> terrestrial elements stood in a hierarchical relationship to one
> another: things hot and dry were superior to things cold and moist." Â [p. 186]
>

In Old English, a language with grammatical gender, the sun _sunne_ is
Feminine, whereas the moon _mona_ is Masculine.

In an episode of the animated cartoon, The Family Guy, there is a
throw-away scene, one having nothing to do with the plot, which
features money-jars for obscenities. The only jar with any money in it
is the jar for _MOIST_ and that one is filled to overflowing.

I can't hazard a guess as to whether that was meant to mock the
concept that a phrase like, e.g. "_moist_ towelette" is obscene or
whether it was meant to agree with that concept.

FWIW, neither I nor any member of the minute set, {women with whom I
am acquainted}, thinks that there's anything obscene about the word,
"moist."

Does anyone else know a member of the fair sex who feels that "moist"
is obscene? If not for that scene in the cartoon, I'd be unpersuaded
that anyone at all truly felt that way.

--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list