This was prompted a thread where Proofreader notes the sexual meaning of the term daisy chain”. With tongue in … (ahem) “cheek”, he says,

quote:

But did you know Alice (of Wonderland fame) was a sexual deviate? Right from the get-go …she is shown to be a thoroughly dirty damsel. Here is the first paragraph from Alice In Wonderland.

“Alice… was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up.“

When I checked this term in OED, thinking to try to antedate their cite, I was surprised to see that OED mis-defines it. Furthermore, they do so even though their own citation makes it clear that their definition cannot be correct.¹

A second example of OED’s “oddity” on sexual matters is their entry for rape (see here).

A third is their entry for sixty-nine. They don’t give it its own lemma; they bury it in a sub-sub-sub-entry under “sixty”. They misplace the sub-sub-sub under adjectival use (not noun). They further bury the term as only a part of the sub-sub-sub (which combines sexual 69 with “sixty-six”, a card game). And even then they refuse to give it a clear definition, instead, cross-referencing you to a less-well-known synonym, under which you can finally find a definition.²

What do you think?

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¹ Quoting in pertinent part: “2.b. Sexual activity involving three or more persons. slang. 1977 a group sex activity called the daisy chain has been invented.” [The cite shows that it means not “group sex,” but rather a particular form thereof.]
² Quoting in pertinent part: “sixty – The cardinal number equal to six times ten
A.. adj.
2. a. Followed immediately by a lesser numeral, as sixty-one, etc.
2. b. sixty-six, a card-game in which a point is gained by scoring sixty-six; sixty-nine, 69 = SOIXANTE-NEUF.”

When I was researching my post, I found ordinary dictionaries give short shrift to sexual slang expressions. The best slang dictionary was the Historical Dictionary of American Slang (at least up to "O"), or, it seems, ask Shufitz.

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