English Language Abuses

Oh, forget the normal, day-to-day English abuses. I'm more after the idiomatic/euphemistic way that we as a whole refer to sex, killing, and body parts. While I understand to a [very small] degree the need to denigrate sex and things sexual, I don't see why it is so prevalent.

I witnessed a phone conversation that was at partially staged for my benefit (not the call itself - that would fall under serendipity for the individual who received it), but the word choices involved. The receiver actually referred to the caller and some unknown third party as a "slit" - it did not take me too long to figure out just what the insult was. (I was later told that the receiver thought using the rather strong word "cunt" was too offensive. An interesting thought since any term of that nature seems quite highly offensive.) This is not unlike the time that Luis came home and casually asked me how I would feel about being called a "gash". EMT that I am the first thought that went through my head is, "why would you want to call me a lacerati-- oh. OOOOhhhhhhhh... Hey! Wait a second!" (Yes, sometimes I'm a little slow on the uptake...)

Luis, well, he used to get most of his tertiary English "skills" from Howard Stern. Since he no longer has any access to Howard (we never did get Sirius) I can't for the life of me imagine where he is getting this sort of euphemistic language from. However, the "slit" perpetrator is in law enforcement... and who knows foul language like cops, firemen and enlisted men?

Foul language hardly bothers me and I use it as well - I would not incorporate the word "cunt" into my everyday English for the severity that others assign to it. I really try to be cautious of that. I use "fuck" a little too liberally but that really is in most people's daily-use lexicon. My area of specialty is Shakespearian language or middle English insults and innuendo.

The English language was much more flowery then, so to speak, so the terminology tended to paint a picture rahter than assign unknown words to parts. A few choice phrases/words:

Plum
Charged chamber
Potent regiment
Billards
Withered pear
Thump
Dearest bodily part
Hang one's bugle in an invisible baldric
Velvet leaves
Bird's nest
Nest of spicery
Clack-dish
Horsemanship
Netherlands
Put a man in one's belly
Make the beast with two backs
Buried with her face upwards
Venus' glove
O
Country matters
Three-inch fool
lag end
Embalming encounter
mingle bloods
Holy-thistle
Box unseen
Shake a man's hack
Gate hole
Change the cod's head for the salmon's tail
potato-finger
Roger
Make defeat of virginity
Pillicock
nose-painting
stairwork
pluck a sweet
Peculiar river
chaste treasure
Scale serve
Den
pick the lock
carrot
Assault between the sheets
Constable
Momentary trick
low countries
Dart of love
Little finger
pizzle

Chuckle. Now, how many of those did you actually know? Go ahead. I know common use ones: beast with two backs, pizzle, dart of love, pick the lock, den, chaste treasure, pluck a sweet... those I know well. Some of the others are a bit more obscure. But don't kid yourself, in the 1500s everyone knew what you were referring to if you said, "I've been down a peculiar river today..."

Ah, the richness and fun that is the English language - or was. Now it is much too obvious and clearly derogatory. It has none of the fun and finesse that is so key to good lingual skills. And with me, English is not just a way of getting ideas across, it's an art form. I love words.

But it is a scary world that feels that we should practice Ebonics...