"taint", anatomical

[Laurence Horn]

On Apr 13, 2012, at 11:16 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

>> "A wide variety of slang terms are commonly used for this area of the
> human body..."
>
> A typical pop pronouncement on slang, based on very little.
>
> "Taint" is the only such synonym I've ever encountered, and in forty years
> of slang collecting from every kind if source - including movies and
> humans, which OED used to eschew, that happened fewer than a half dozen
> times.  Has anyone here - more attentive to language than most - had a
> dramatically different experience?
> (It doesn't appear, for ex., in Rodgers's fantasmagoric _Queen's
> Vernacular_  of 1972.)
>
> So what are the odds that "a wide variety" of such terms are "commonly"
> used? (HDAS has _choad_, but not in this sense.)
>
> There may have been a seismic cultural shift relating to the grundle area
> in the last decade or so that might not have filtered down to my level, but
> I doubt it.  Interest in such synonyms undoubtedly arose in the wake of
> publishing smashes like _The Sensuous Woman_, _The Joy of Sex_, and
> _Letters to Penthouse_.
>
> Jon Green etymologizes "grundle" (not in HDAS) from a 16th C. term for a
> short person.
>
> "Grundle," Gooch" and "Nifkin" are all uncommon American surnames, FWIW.
>
…often involving those who changed their name from "Taint".

LH

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