[Ads-l] No word for X

[Dave Wilton]

There doesn't appear to be a Latin word that exactly translates to "sexy," but that's not surprising. It's rare to find a word, especially for abstract concepts, that translates perfectly in all connotations. But there are number of Latin words for "beautiful" that encompass the concept of sexy:

venustus/venusta 
formosus/formosa (well formed, shapely)
pulcher/pulchra



-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> On Behalf Of Jonathan Lighter
Sent: Monday, July 22, 2019 8:33 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] No word for X

It seems ungrammatical and nonsensical, even in Latin.

What's the "a" (by, from) doing?  And "pudicus/-a/-um" means "chaste."

If anything, the translation seems to say, "She's a lady of very little chastity."

But that's not what "sexy" means.

JL



On Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 5:46 PM Mark Mandel <markamandel at gmail.com> wrote:

> Well, what do you expect from Google Translate?
>
> MAM
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 4:20 PM Andy Bach <afbach at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Well, Google translate says "She was a sexy lady" becomes "ipsa 
> > domina erat a parum pudici" which it back translates to "she was the 
> > mistress
> of a
> > small amount of sexy,"
> >
> > On Fri, Jul 19, 2019 at 11:06 PM Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > There appears to be no word in Latin for "sexy."
> > >
> > > Um-research suggests that there appears to be no word for "sexy" 
> > > in any language other than English.
> > >
> > > On Fri, Jul 19, 2019 at 1:16 PM Jonathan Lighter <
> wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com
> > >
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > There appears to be no word in Latin for "sexy."
> > > >
> > > > JL
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


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