h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I don't think that all of the recent posters on the 'sexual practices' thread have *quite* got the idea.

(But I hope you like some of mine).

Sure did! Particularly "Dunnielingus - when the tongue slips into the wrong bit"

Hey - it's fun. Though updating the entry will be a pain!

(And take that any way you like, you filthily inventive man!)

B

I'll take *anything* any way you like!

*chortle*

B

By the way - I was listening to The Moral Maze last night (well, someone has to). They were talking about whether 'anything really does go these days as far as sex'.

Michael Gough (is that how the reactionary git spells it? It's pronounced 'Go') was berating a woman from The Erotic Review (W---mag of the chattering classes) over her support of the sale of vibrators in Boots: 'Do you really thing that I should have to suffer people like you flaunting their voracious sexual appetites?!!!' Yeah...like he's never masturbated!

The best bit was a guy from the ICA talking about their Pornacopia festival: 'Your falling back on a stereotyped view. I'm not saying it's art. It's about titillation. What we're interested in is whether we can apply artistic values so that we can at least be titillated properly.' That shut 'em up.

(By the way - you really should check out nerve.com. It's not pervy stuff! It's quite funny in parts.)

>> It's not pervy stuff!

And that is a recommendation?

I enjoy sex, (as if you couldn't guess), and have ended up in some - ah - non main-stream situations, but I am concerned by the sexualisation of imagery and advertising.

I particularly dislike the ads for herbal essences shampoos, but I think that is partly because they reinforce a particularly stereotypical view of how a female orgasm 'should' sound, and partly because they devalue sex. I mean, shampoo your hair or have really good sex? C'm'ON!. But I also think it is because it is so completely pointless.

The Erotic Review is hilarious! I have only read one copy, (can't find it locally at the moment, though I haven't tried that hard). It is incredibly English - rather like Punch with a really school-boy sense of the erotic. I ought to try to track it down again.

Vibrators in Boots? Why the hell not?

I was disturbed the other day by going into a party shop, the kind that sells balloons and Ronnie Reagan masks, (Dubbya, now, I suppose), and silly string, and false boobs for stag nights. It also sold face paints for children and pink fairy outfits for seven year old girls. What disturbed me was that on the next wall it had sexy-nurse and sexy-french maid outfits (just about ok) pink fluffy handcuffs (hmmm), and the world's cheapest and least functional cat o' nine tails. Ok, it was clearly a novelty item, but I found the juxtaposition disturbing.

B

Oh, yes, I agree!!! We Brits are sooooo uncool about sex. I too dislike its commercialisation. But then, I dislike the commercialisation of food, music....

When I was in Prague, I hung out with a couple of really cool Italians - the kind of guys who knew more about contemporary British literature than my British counterparts. Every lunchtime we would go around the corner from the conference venue to a really cool bar/restaurant (and, man, is it a pleasure eating with Italians! They were as interested in food as I am and discussed the bread in intricate detail). Anyway, around the walls were these really amazing nude photos by Czech photographers. For examples, Google "Tono Stano" or "Frantisek Drtikol". When I mentioned these to British colleagues, the raection was "Oh aye...what kind of bar was this? (nudge nudge wink wink)."

Whet we're missing is a healthy attitude to sex as a normal, pleasurable activity. What we've got is an idea of sex as an indulgence. And that indulgence is being marketed to us in the same way that sweeties are being marketed to kids.

But...let's be positive. As a nation, we're changing. People are taking charge of their own sexuality. Give it a few years and we might even become Europeans.

I am pretty sure that I have told you about being in the car with the gay man, the transsexual and the straight lad. I am not sure if I added the second paragraph. Forgive me if you know the story.

The lad, (early 20s now, goddess help us all), has a tendency to tune out of adult conversations, and then to tune in to them again. I suspect that this is what had happened when he suddenly burst into incoherent laughter in the car.

The rest of us had been talking about bestiality in the way that the three of us normally talk about sex which is fairly low-key, fairly mundane, "done that", "don't fancy that", "not as good as it sounds" kinda way. A bit like discussing rail routes to Basingstoke. When the lad tuned in again he found the contrast between the admittedly fairly extreme nature of our subject matter and the extreme banality with which we were discussing it too much for him.

B
* Note to the mods:
No animals or sensibilities were harmed in the making of this post*

Damn, after that, I forgot the real reason for my reply.

Check out: A3206404

B

That was rather good! I *did* have to look at the footnotes for 'grid iron scar' and 'Batholin glands', though (He said, showing off)

I wonder....did 'fanny' *actually* come from 'FANY'? Certainly it must be relatively recent, given the prevalence of the name 'Fanny' - unless John Cleland was making a deliberate double ententre. The one that always amuse me is 'Fanny By Gaslight'.

I'm intrigued by these '...non-mainstream situations' you mentioned earlier.

Fanny certainly meant - er - fanny in the early 19th C, because the Americans simply could not believe that "Fanny Trollope" was a real person. She was Anthony Trollope's mother, and wrote a rather sniffy book called "The Domestic Manners of the Americans", so you can see why they thought it was a nom de plume.

It isn't included in exerpts that I have from the Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Capt Frances Grose (that cannot be the correct spelling of 'his' name, surely?) which was published in 1785. However, I don't know if the copy I have is complete, and omission is not proof of non-existance anyway.

I had always assumed that Cleland was nudging and winking when he chose the name. It is one of the few rude words that I don't know the etymology of. My Chambers gives no etymology, although it defines it. YourDictionary.com doesn't give an entymology either and only gives the US definition. Hmmm.

Presumably it pre-dates the 18thC because it appears with different meanings in the two languages, which suggests that it had both meanings at the time that the languages started to split, which is kinda mid-18thC, wouldn't you say?

It really does appear to be a word whose entymology is unkown. I'd like to know what the Oxford cites as its first usage, but it isn't even in my Shorter Oxford, which is not really acceptable.

Nothing to do with Fanny Adams, who was a murdered victim of a paedophile, and who is buried in Alton in Hampshire.


>> '...non-mainstream situations'

Pas devant les moderateurs. Mind you, you probably don't have a functional email address for me. [email protected] does it.

B

Can't use home e-mail from work. They stopped it a few weeks back (the continued existence of h2g2 seems to be an oversight). I'll mail from home. Aren't you better doing the 'whatsit (at) thingy dot com' - 'pour epater les spammeurs'?

Oddly enough, I'm currently reading 'A Peoples' History of the United States' (Howard Zinn. V. Good) and came across a reference to Fanny Trollope's book. I'd kind of assumed they were related.

I really must get a good dictionary of mucky words. I'm also trying to remember the name of the linguist who died a couple of years ago who was a specialist in British slang. He once described the difference between a p---k and a c--t as 'The former is more fool than knave, the latter more knave than fool.'

>> I really must get a good dictionary of mucky words.

Well, there is always http://uk.geocities.com/agirlcalledben/words.html It has ommissions, but - hey - it was fun!

>> 'pour epater les spammeurs'

I quite like spam. How else to keep up with the netgeist? Besides which, I riff poetry off it and, let's face it - one never really knows when one is next going to need hot asian babes. Actually, Yahoo's filters aren't bad. I've had far more problems with my main cix address.

>> He once described the difference between a p---k and a c--t

Nice one. I like Jerry Sadowitz's comment that you can say 'I pricked my finger, but not I fingered my p***k'. I am surprised my name hasn't been modded, to be honest.

I find it sweetly trusting of the world in general, that the corporate standard is to provide access to the BBC.

B

Let me know if the Geocities link doesn't work, (filters again, or odd things in MS IE). I have it on another site.

B

Hey! That's a wonderful resource! You must find an excuse to drop it into Language and Linguistics.

Wasn't the C-word originally 'quint' - which is also etymologically related to 'quaint'? i.e. deriving from 'wise woman'. And I've an idea it's also related to 'quine' (cf 'kine' - archaic plural of 'cow'). Plus I think quine is still a vaguely derogatory semi-archaic word for women in Scots. There was a book of new writings by Scottish women (Liz Lochhead etc) a few years back called 'Harpies and Quine'.

I think I've already mentioned that my Czech friend Veronika is especially fond of 'b-gg-r'. I hace taught her 'rugger bugger' - especially useful given the weekend drinking exodus from the UK to Prague, and a sying of my Grandfather's: 'When it's brown it's done, when it's black it's b-gg---d'

An observation: The word is far less taboo than F---, but the action is more.

Well, it was fun to write. When the Beeb took over h2g2 in 2001 we were suddenly presented with moderation, and a long but entirely invisible and seemingly arbitary list of words we couldn't use. Ach, the full story is here: A688476.

The Bragg book is burbling about spelling in the section I am reading right now. He quotes the Wife of Bath, thusly:

What eyleth yow to grucche thus and grone?
Is it for ye wolde have my queynte alone?

Which incidentally suggests that the final -e was pronounced in a more germanic manner than it is now.

I do not know the correct spelling, but the Dutch slang for those neat little trendy little 'tash and goatee combos is "prater kut" which translates as "talking c***".

Not sure about the connection with kine - seems like an etymology based on rationalisation rather than on evidence.

Cheers.

B