Neuticles (most unnecessary candidate?)

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Wed Feb 20 21:31:11 UTC 2013


On Feb 20, 2013, at 4:15 PM, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:

> On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 04:13:04PM -0500, Laurence Horn wrote:
>> Yup, just what they sound like:
>>
>> http://www.neuticles.com/videos.php
>>
>> Half a million pairs sold, and apparently Kim Kardashian is one of the many pleased customers (for her dog, she says).
>>
>> Yes, as we've discussed, it's always tricky to determine whether it's the *word* that's unnecessary (or least likely to succeed) or whether it's the *concept*.  You decide.
>>
>
> We already did. This won Most Outrageous in 2002:
>
> http://www.americandialect.org/2002_words_of_the_year
>
Aha.  I should have checked.  That was the one LSA I missed, although I had a good excuse (intensive chemotherapy).  So I've gone all these years without knowing about the possibility of neuticles.  Clearly it wasn't "least likely to succeed", however outrageous it may have been, since they're still going strong over a decade later.  I just read about them in today's Care2 bulletin: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/neuticles-fake-testicles-for-your-pet.html
--which links to a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaoYmuRM) showing a neuticle procedure conducted at the "Schultz Veterinary Clinic in Okermos, MI".  In fact, the clinic is actually located in the former hometown of our Dennis Preston, *Okemos*--the r is prosthetic.

LH

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