"friends-and-relations" who disrespect linguistics professors

[Jonathan Lighter]

Allow me to direct your attention to Frankie Rubenstein's _A Dictionary of
Shakespeare's Sexual Puns and their References_ (Macmillan, 1984).

There you will find *every last one* of the words your friends were
snickering at - and more.

That Shakespeare. All he could think about was sex. Just look at his name,
for God's sake.

JL

On Wed, Nov 21, 2012 at 10:53 PM, Dan Goodman <dsgood at iphouse.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dan Goodman <dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "friends-and-relations" who disrespect linguistics
> professors
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On 11/21/2012 4:02 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> > Subject:      Re: "friends-and-relations" who disrespect linguistics
> professors
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > On Nov 21, 2012, at 11:46 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >
> > When I was teaching freshman comp, about 1983, the phrase "so-and-so's
> > relations" appeared in one of the readings, possibly _Heart of Darkness_.
> > (Never teach it to freshmen, BTW!)   When I repeated the phrase (in all
> > innocence, of course), the class broke into a
> > what-you-used-to-be-able-to-call  a "titter."
> >
> > When I asked what was so funny ("Ah, youth!" - Conrad), they explained
> that
> > "relations means sex."
> >
> > I observed calmly that it also means "relatives."  There was much
> > eye-rolling and disbelief in consequence, including the always
> unanswerable
> > loaded folk-question, "If he meant relatives, why didn't he say
> relatives?"
> In junior high or high school, other boys in my English class snickered
> at everything Shakespearean which sounded like a sexual reference.
>
> Years later, I realized they had missed all the real ones.
>
> --
> Dan Goodman
>
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