[Ads-l] locomotives as female

Sat Apr 25 21:02:47 UTC 2015

I'll assume that symbolism general is an important issue to linguists. If
not, ignore all that follows.

Interestingly enough, Freud himself seems not to have specified trains in
the imagination as phallic symbols alone. (And perhaps not at all: I
haven't unearthed a quote.)

_A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis_ (1920):

"Death is replaced in the dream by taking a journey, riding in a train,
[etc.]."

As I recall, a Freudian symbol means whatever you think it means right now,
as well as whatever unconscious meanings it holds for you, which, by
definition, you don't know about. Thus it becomes impossible to distinguish
meanings that your mind is suppressing from meanings that aren't in your
head at all.

Critics of a Freudian bent get around this by assuming that all possible
symbolic meanings (especially the ones that they themselves perceive) are
stored in every adult's unconscious. Of course, that belief defies
disconfirmation.

So anyone who doesn't see the train as phallic is repressed or just doesn't
understand the secrets of filmmaking.  Surely the sight of a monster
gorilla wielding an unconscious blonde atop the world's tallest building
while he's being machine-gunned by naval biplanes makes everyone think of
sex?  You say No? Prove it.

If Hitchcock intended the train to symbolize a giant penis, allow me to
suggest that it was his business [sic] alone and adds nothing to plot or
the character. We've just seen the Thornhills in bed together on their
honeymoon - and an attractive couple they are. Anybody who can't figure
*that* out definitely won't see the "symbolism" - which then becomes
meaningless.

Back to the putative [sic] quote in Freud. Is Garson interested in tracking
it down?

JL

On Sat, Apr 25, 2015 at 12:05 PM, Dave Hause <dwhause at cablemo.net> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dave Hause <dwhause at CABLEMO.NET>
> Subject:      Re: locomotives as female
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Lots of hits for the search for "mae west lickety split" such as
>
> http://www.portlandmercury.com/BlogtownPDX/archives/2012/06/29/selections-from-my-random-house-historical-dictionary-of-american-slang
> or http://tinyurl.com/lyuzkaa which quotes "Mae West jokes are in again
> (e.g., Mae on phone to Chinese laundry: 'Where the hell is my laundry? Get
> it over here right away.' Chinaman on arrival: 'I come lickety-split, Mae
> West.' Mae: 'Never mind that. Just gimme the laundry.')."
>
> Dave Hause, dwhause at cablemo.net
> Waynesville, MO
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jonathan Lighter
> Sent: Saturday, April 25, 2015 8:17 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: locomotives as female
>
> We watched _North by Northwest_ last night.
>
> I wonder now what it actually means to say that the tunnel moment in
> question, the final moment of the film, is a "phallic symbol."
>
> Even after our discussion, its phallicity was not obvious to me or my wife,
> two Phds who spent years teaching freshmen how to read literature.
>
> Does it mean:
>
> 1. That had it occurred in a dream, Freud would have regarded it as a
> symbol of repressed sexual desire?
>
> 2. That Hitchcock [sic] placed it in the movie for his own unconscious
> sexual motives?
>
> 3. That Hitchcock [sic] placed it there deliberately to show an obtuse
> world that Mr. and Mrs. Thornhill were at that very moment getting it on?
> (He's already indicated overtly - bed, honeymoon, etc. - that they were.)
>
> 4. That it just means, you know, like, um, sex, and we're expected to
> chuckle at how perceptive we are?
>
> 5. That it doesn't particularly "mean" sex in context, it's just the end of
> the movie, but that we're supposed to chuckle, as in 4, because only a
> hopelessly repressed loser wouldn't think of sex when confronted with that
> image?
>
> 6. None or all of the above.
>
>
> Of similar interest (but undoubtedly close to 4, above) is the arguably
> gratuitous use of "lickety-split" in the latest Duluth Trading Co. ad:
>
> http://blog.duluthtrading.com/dry-on-the-fly-pants-snail-tv-commercial/
>
> A college classmate once told me (ca1972) that "lickety-split" "means oral
> sex."  When I asked him to use it in a sentence, he couldn't. (Though one
> may easily formulate an ad-hoc joke about race car drivers and Italian
> lesbians.)
>
> So "mean" can be used to mean "should make you think of, if you're as smart
> as I am."
> Especially sex.
>
>
> JL
>
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 24, 2015 at 3:08 AM, W Brewer <brewerwa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       W Brewer <brewerwa at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: locomotives as female
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > <<" Ships should be referred to as _she_, not _it_, even if the names are
> > masculine.">>
> > Moby Dick / Thar she blows!   (Damn, that sounds dirty.)
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
>
> --
> "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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