Richard muses, "I wonder whether the total number of euphemisms for sexual intercourse is greater than that for drunkenness?"
In the spirit of inquiry, let us collect euphemisms for sexual intercourse (brain power only), arranged to make it easy to review and see whether an entry has already been presented.
By the way, a definitional question: is "sexual intercourse" limited to coitus, or does it include other forms of two-party (or more) activity or solo activity. (If the former, then it is itself a euphemism.) In any event, shall we include only coitus, or the others as well? Let's include all but use an asterisk to mark non-coital forms.
I feel a bit dicey about this thread, and so will begin with only a few to kick it off, leaving time for others to object if they feel this thread improper.
A to G: bang, beast with two backs, crimimal conversation
H to M: have, make it, make love, make whoopie
N to R:
S to Z: screw, 69*, sleep together
(10 so far)
May 28, 2005, 16:39
Caterwauller
I think it would be interesting to include other activities which lead up to and enhance coitus. To that end, I offer the following:
hump, *snog, *suck face, bump bush, filander
******* "Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions. ~Dalai Lama
May 28, 2005, 18:43
Kalleh
I feel a bit dicey about this thread,
Ahem! Well, you should!
I've always liked getting to first base, second base, third base...and scoring a homerun!
May 28, 2005, 19:22
tinman
quote:
Originally posted by Kalleh: I've always liked getting to first base, second base, third base...and scoring a homerun!
A real baseball fan, huh? I'm sure Shufitz is glad to hear that!
Tinman
May 28, 2005, 19:48
Hic et ubique
ball lay plough toss, tumble
May 28, 2005, 22:04
tinman
black topping coffee griding doing it doing the horizontal mambo doing the nasty having carnal knowledge having a relationship with jazz jellyroll jive knowing (Biblical euphemism) laying lying with (Biblical euphemism) bonk practicing for the honeymoon (I think that's from some move or tv show) riding (remember Easy Rider?) rock 'n' roll (or just roll) swinging slow dancing
They're limitless.
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May 29, 2005, 08:05
<Asa Lovejoy>
Rutting, plowing the furrow, getting your rocks off, riding the rocket, playing the skin flute (oral), copulating, shagging, bouncing on the midnight trampoline.......
I note with dismay the lack of british contributions here.
May 29, 2005, 13:35
aput
discussing Ugandan affairs
May 29, 2005, 13:40
jerry thomas
Every time I hear that marchin Lohengrin I am always on the outside lookin' in Maybe that is why I see the funny side When I see somebody's brother take a bride Weddings make a lot of people sad But if you'd not the one, they're not so bad!
Another bride, another june Another sunny honeymoon Another season, another reason For Makin' Whoopee!!!
A lot of shoes, a lot of rice The groom is nervous, he answers twice It's really killin', that he's so willin' To Make Whoopee!!
Picture a little love-nest Down where the roses cling Picture the same sweet lovenest Think what a year can bring
He's washing dishes, and baby clothes He's so ambitious, he even sews But don't forget, folks That's what you get, folks For Makin' Whoopee!!
Another year, or maybe less What's this I hear? Well, can't you guess? She feels neglected, and he's suspected Of Makin' Whoopee!!
She sits alone, 'most every night He doesn't phone nor even write He says he's "busy" But she says "is he? He's Makin' Whoopee!!"
He doesn't make much money Five-hundred thousand per Some judge, who thinks he's funny Says "You pay six to her"
He says: "Now judge, what if I fail." The judge says: "Budge, right into jail! You better keep her, I think it's cheaper Than Makin' Whoopee!!"
May 29, 2005, 15:57
<Asa Lovejoy>
How could we possibly forget good old venery? You folks DO remember venereal disease, don't you? That's what people contracted before the literalists decided they had Sexually Transmitted Diseases. And if you're lovesick, I suppose you've contracted an emotional venerial disease!
My ex-sister-in-law used to say she was going to be the main feature at a nuts and bolts seminar.
May 29, 2005, 16:30
tinman
And "rolling in the hay."
Tinman
May 29, 2005, 19:00
Kalleh
quote:
discussing Ugandan affairs
Now that one really perplexes me! I must say, though, that many of these are I haven't heard of, like "plough" (now, in the drunk thread, I have heard of being "ploughed!") or "jellyroll" or "jazz" or "doing the horizontal mambo" (though it makes sense) or "coffee grounding" or "black topping" or "rutting" or "playing the skin flute" or "bouncing on the midnight trampoline" or "bump bush," etc. Jeez, you all get around!
Shu asked me today if I knew where the "birds and bees" came from. I thought it would be easy to find, and I have been all over the Internet looking and can't find anything. I looked in word detective and world wide words and etymology online and Google. Any ideas?
May 29, 2005, 21:00
Caterwauller
fooling around taking the skin boat to tuna town having the sideways taco (oral) or the tuna taco playing hide the salami entertaining the anaconda
and - Mama's got a squeezebox, Daddy never sleeps at night.
******* "Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions. ~Dalai Lama
May 30, 2005, 11:13
<Asa Lovejoy>
Ummmm, don't forget, Caterwauler, "catting about' is one too!
May 31, 2005, 02:58
Richard English
Another US jazz-related one (which became the title of a jazz standard): "strutting with some barbecue".
Richard English
May 31, 2005, 03:25
tinman
quote:
Originally posted by Kalleh: ... many of these are I haven't heard of, like "plough" ...
Shakespeare's " Antony and Cleopatra" (1606): "He ploughed her, and she cropt." (line 943)
Nick: What I thought I'd do is, I'd sort of insinuate myself generally, you know, find all the weak spots...become sort of a fact and then turn into a, a what? (gesturing toward George) George: An inevitability. Nick: Exactly, an inevitability. Take over a few courses from the older men, plow a few pertinent wives. George: Now that's it. I mean, you can shove aside all the older men you can find, but until you start plowing pertinent wives, you're really not working. That's the way to power. Plow 'em all!...The way to a man's heart, the wide inviting avenue to his job is through his wife, and don't you forget it. Nick: And I'll bet your wife's got the widest, most inviting avenue on the whole damn campus. (He laughs) I mean, her father being president and all. George: You bet your historical inevitability. Nick: Yessiree. I'd just better get her off into the bushes right away.
quote:
Shu asked me today if I knew where the "birds and bees" came from.
Where exactly "the birds and the bees" originated nobody knows, but word sleuths William and Mary Morris hint that it may have been inspired by words like these from the poet Samuel Coleridge: "All nature seems at work ... The bees are stirring--birds are on the wing ... and I the while, the sole unbusy thing, not honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing." Making honey, pairing ... yes, we can definitely tell what Sam had on his mind.
The Morrises offer the theory that schools in years past taught about sex by "telling how birds do it and how bees do it and trusting that the youngsters would get the message by indirection." Right. Luckily for the perpetuation of the species, there's always been Louie in the schoolyard to explain how things really worked.
Hmm, "... nor sing." Reminds me of "yodeling up the canyon."
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May 31, 2005, 04:51
BobHale
I'm working from memory here but I think in Titus Andronicus when they are plotting the brutal rape and disfigurment of Lavinia the phrase they use is
"revel in Lavinia's treasury."
"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson.
May 31, 2005, 05:03
jo
Do none of you watch Black Adder?
Sausage Time!
Rumpy Bumpy!
May 31, 2005, 15:55
tinman
quote:
Originally posted by BobHale: "revel in Lavinia's treasury."
Tinman, thanks for those explanations. I didn't remember that "plough" was used for sexual intercourse in Shakespeare. I am more skeptical about the "birds and bees" theory, but I would like to get those word sleuths, William and Mary Morris, for our board!
June 01, 2005, 21:21
tinman
quote:
Originally posted by Kalleh: Tinman, thanks for those explanations. I didn't remember that "plough" was used for sexual intercourse in Shakespeare.
Hugh Rawson, in Dictionary of Euphemisms and Other Doubletalk," (1995) remarks on Shakespeare's use of the word, but he spells it plow. That made me wonder which came first plough or plow and why one changed into the other. The OED Online says that, in the 16th and 17th centuries, the noun was usually plough and the verb was usually plow, but that plough was sometimes used for the verb and, in the 18th century, the two forms merged into plough for both noun and verb in England. In the U.S. they became plow. He says that meaning dates back "at least to Roman times and still current: the similar mow appears to be obsolete."
By the way, intercourse is, itself, a euphemism. as Rawson points out. He also mentions a couple I had never heard of: ugly and yentz.
Let me quote what he says about ugly
quote:
Ugliness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, "ugly" being an old term (ca. 1900), apparently of Southern origin, for sexual intercourse, often in the phrase do the ugly. "He was in [jail in Mississippi] for thirty days for throwing bricks at a woman at a church social because she wouldn't do the ugly for forty cents" (Atlantic Monthly, 9/38). Variants, current among college-age people in a New York City suburb and, presumably, among younger and older people elsewhere, include busting (or rubbing) uglies and to beat (someone) with an ugly stick (personal communication, 8/15/90). A synonymous expression, used in the same surburban set is doing the nasty (said by my informant to reflect a Roman Catholic upbring). The connection can't be documented but "ugly/nasty" look very much like spinoffs from doing the naughty, which dates from the 1800s as a reference to sexual intercourse. In turn, "naughty" (from "naught," a zero, something with no value), has a long sexual history, implying smuttiness or obscenity as far back as the sixteenth century. Variations on this theme included naughty-man, a whoremonger; naughty-pack a whore, and naughty-house a whorehouse, e.g. "This house, if it not be a bawd's house ... is a naughty house" (William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, 1604).
Yentz, he says is "A low word in Yiddish, comparable to "fuck," in the sense of swindling or deceiving as well as copulating ..."
He also mentions play the virginals, a musical image used by Shakespeare and John Fletcher in The Two Noble Kinsmen.
quote:
I am more skeptical about the "birds and bees" theory, but I would like to get those word sleuths, William and Mary Morris, for our board!
I'm afraid William Morris, editor-in-chief of the American Heritage Dictionary in 1963 (I think it was published in 1969) died in 1984. I don't know if his wife, Mary Morris, is still alive or not. But his son, Evan Morris, is alive and well and is perhaps better known as The Word Detective.
Tinman
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