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Somewhat related to words that sound like slurs are words that have drifted in meaning over the years. I think Sherlock holmes "ejaculations" have been brought up before, but at least here the modern meaning is so different that while it sounds silly or funny to modern readers, they immediately understand that what they picture Holmes doing is probably not what the author intended. But it can be much sneakier than that, for example with words like "molest", which could often mean something as mild as "annoy" fairly recently. Just look at this example from P.G. Wodehouse Wodehouse posted:Bees flew past him, bees flew into him, bees settled upon his coat, bees paused questioningly in front of him … but not a single bee molested him. So you quite often get sentences like "Plenty of ruffians tried to molest us as we made our way through" in books from the early 20th century, where modern readers can easily get a very different picture of what's going on than what was intended.
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Jan 8, 2024 14:38
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Jan 8, 2024 14:45
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Offler posted:Somewhat related to words that sound like slurs are words that have drifted in meaning over the years. I think Sherlock holmes "ejaculations" have been brought up before, but at least here the modern meaning is so different that while it sounds silly or funny to modern readers, they immediately understand that what they picture Holmes doing is probably not what the author intended. I was reading an article from 1896 and it described a gang of miscreants who would hang around the canal weighlock and harass people. One line described how "when night arrived, they would keep up their orgies to a late hour" which probably had a connotation of drunken revelry at the time but... really just makes me think the weighlock was a hook-up spot.
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Jan 8, 2024 14:56
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Offler posted:Somewhat related to words that sound like slurs are words that have drifted in meaning over the years. I think Sherlock holmes "ejaculations" have been brought up before, but at least here the modern meaning is so different that while it sounds silly or funny to modern readers, they immediately understand that what they picture Holmes doing is probably not what the author intended. The signs posted at my local parks include in the list of things you're not supposed to do there "molesting wildlife," which has been a real hoot to generations of young people and the young at heart
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Jan 8, 2024 15:02
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Something that can get a little goofy is how back in the early 20th century people would say "make love" when we would say "make out." See "It's a Wonderful Life"
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Jan 8, 2024 15:06
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DrBouvenstein posted:Reminds me that an ex girlfriend of mine would CONSTANTLY use the phrase: https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/3b471ee3-a04a-48a4-99ff-c040c523db85
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Jan 8, 2024 15:14
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muscles like this! posted:Something that can get a little goofy is how back in the early 20th century people would say "make love" when we would say "make out." See "It's a Wonderful Life" Originally it just referred to flirting, with no particular connotation of physical contact. But then it started to get used euphemistically for kissing and petting, until that became the prevailing usage, at which point people started using it euphemistically for loving. As is often the case with these things (c.f. gay) there was a transitory period where all three uses coexisted.
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Jan 8, 2024 15:14
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I'm going to go make gay love, by which I mean flirting with, kissing, and then loving my same sex partner, in a manner that one would describe as light and carefree
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Jan 8, 2024 15:25
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the holy poopacy posted:
The book I'm currently listening to, written in the 1930s IIRC, seems to have been written in such a period for the word "idiot". When two policemen discuss the crime commited by an "idiot", one of them clarifies that he was an idiot in the medical sense to the other.
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Jan 8, 2024 16:10
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muscles like this! posted:Something that can get a little goofy is how back in the early 20th century people would say "make love" when we would say "make out." See "It's a Wonderful Life" I guess it would make sense that a young woman in a 1920s small town wouldn't be so bold as to yell at her mother "that George Bailey is loving me good!" even though the movie had made it abundantly clear that's what Mary wanted. I guess even making out in public would be a scandalous idea to suggest to a square like George. That's a scene that sticks with me, mainly because of the blasé delivery from Donna Reed.
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Jan 8, 2024 17:43
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Brawnfire posted:I was reading an article from 1896 and it described a gang of miscreants who would hang around the canal weighlock and harass people. One line described how "when night arrived, they would keep up their orgies to a late hour" which probably had a connotation of drunken revelry at the time but... really just makes me think the weighlock was a hook-up spot. Dirty Mike and the Boys have been at it for longer than I figured.
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Jan 8, 2024 22:21
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Idiot, imbecile and moron used to be clinical terms in rising order of capability.
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Jan 8, 2024 22:57
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Ejaculated has another meaning of "say something quickly and suddenly." Which I discovered in an older book having something along the lines of "he ran downstairs ejaculating".
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Jan 8, 2024 23:06
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Jolly Guy posted:Ejaculated has another meaning of "say something quickly and suddenly." Which I discovered in an older book having something along the lines of "he ran downstairs ejaculating". Who amongst us, though?
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Jan 9, 2024 00:20
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Jolly Guy posted:Ejaculated has another meaning of "say something quickly and suddenly." Which I discovered in an older book having something along the lines of "he ran downstairs ejaculating". That's silly. Everyone knows when you go down stairs you're supposed to breast boobily.
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Jan 9, 2024 00:37
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Jolly Guy posted:Ejaculated has another meaning of "say something quickly and suddenly." Which I discovered in an older book having something along the lines of "he ran downstairs ejaculating". Yeah, this is what I meant by Sherlock Holmes ejaculations. The funniest of the canonical Holmes ejaculations is the one where the modern meaning makes the text ambiguous about whether Holmes or Watson ejaculated in this passage: Dr. Watson posted:So [Sherlock Holmes] sat as I dropped off to sleep. So he sat as a sudden ejaculation caused me to wake up.
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Jan 9, 2024 00:41
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I think it's Wuthering Heights that has a passage where a guy comes downstairs and finds his children, his parents and his dog are all ejaculating.
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Jan 9, 2024 00:50
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credburn posted:I think it's Wuthering Heights that has a passage where a guy comes downstairs and finds his children, his parents and his dog are all ejaculating. Yeah, a lot of novels from around that time were focused on stories of the aristocrats
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Jan 9, 2024 00:54
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Current thread topic just reminded me of that one time I tried watching an episode of Gidget as a teen and heard Sally Field refer to a nearby party as "an orgy"
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Jan 9, 2024 00:56
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Must have overheard all the festive ejaculations
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Jan 9, 2024 00:59
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In the realm of historical distance obscuring what’s actually being described, I’ve always wondered if Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s is having sex with those guys for money and we’re just supposed to understand what’s going on under a Hays Code filter, or if there was some kind of midcentury cultural development where old guys would pay hot women to hang out with them and go to parties.
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Jan 9, 2024 01:29
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Escort culture is a little of both. You pay to have an attractive woman go to a party with you, and there's sex afterwards.
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Jan 9, 2024 01:37
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MrUnderbridge posted:Idiot, imbecile and moron used to be clinical terms in rising order of capability. Where do ignoramus, nincompoop, and simpleton fit into the scale?
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Jan 9, 2024 02:00
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Still a thing today afaik. People are status-obsessed, and when attending certain types of party arm-candy is considered a type of jewellery used to show off your success and thus raise your status.
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Jan 9, 2024 02:02
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I once read a novel written and set in the 1940s. It wasn't very good and I now can't remember the title, author or most of the plot. But it had one moment that really stuck in the mind; one of the characters has growing suspicions that his wife is having an affair. This is confirmed when (and I'm sure this is a fairly accurate quote, since I pondered on it for so long): "...he suddenly remembered the washbag hanging on the back of the bedroom door, where he knew she kept her 'things'. A quick inspection confirmed both their absence and, finally, his most reluctant suspicions." This is clearly an oblique but significant reference to something intimate and not to be directly mentioned in polite literature but 70 years on it's thoroughly obscure. What was he expecting to see? How did whatever they were not being there confirm his wife's cheating? What was going on, Mr. 1940s Cuckold??? Actually that book had another memorable section - a sex scene written so euphemistically and via so many tortured weather metaphors that it wasn't until the storm had passed that I realised 'oh, so they were loving?'
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Jan 9, 2024 02:08
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Diaphragm, douches, condoms are all things she could have that their absence would indicate an affair that would be euphemistically referred to as her things. Otherwise it could be things like sexy lingerie.
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Jan 9, 2024 02:12
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I AM GRANDO posted:In the realm of historical distance obscuring what’s actually being described, I’ve always wondered if Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s is having sex with those guys for money and we’re just supposed to understand what’s going on under a Hays Code filter, or if there was some kind of midcentury cultural development where old guys would pay hot women to hang out with them and go to parties. If hostess clubs are anywhere near as much of a thing in Japan as the Yakuza games suggest, do not underestimate how many dudes will pay money for a woman to be nice to them for a few hours.
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Jan 9, 2024 03:14
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credburn posted:I think it's Wuthering Heights that has a passage where a guy comes downstairs and finds his children, his parents and his dog are all ejaculating. So there was ejaculating in a passage?
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Jan 9, 2024 04:12
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On rare occasion, I'll come across French letters in a book. It's good for a sensible chuckle as you know some posh old English fellow was using the politest term possible.
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Jan 9, 2024 04:43
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Ghost Leviathan posted:If hostess clubs are anywhere near as much of a thing in Japan as the Yakuza games suggest, do not underestimate how many dudes will pay money for a woman to be nice to them for a few hours.
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Jan 9, 2024 04:57
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Tiggum posted:That is pretty much the primary appeal of strip clubs, as well. There's drinks and naked ladies, but also they will be nice to you and pretend to be very interested in everything you have to say. And there are cheaper drinks elsewhere and plenty of naked ladies to look at on the internet, so it's really that last part that's important. I'm almost reminded of iirc the Japanese guy who realised 'Hooters is the American equivalent of a maid cafe'.
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Jan 9, 2024 06:22
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Technically Hooters predators maid cafes by several years. So maid cafes are Japanese hooters.
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Jan 9, 2024 06:36
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I understand that some of them are Japanese tilted kilts.
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Jan 9, 2024 06:40
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You probably could find a host bar in Japan where everybody wears kilts. If there's a niche, someone will try to fill it.
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Jan 9, 2024 12:42
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Kwyndig posted:Technically Hooters predators maid cafes by several years. So maid cafes are Japanese hooters. drat, Hooters traveled all that way just for a hunt? 
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Jan 9, 2024 13:35
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I AM GRANDO posted:In the realm of historical distance obscuring what’s actually being described, I’ve always wondered if Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s is having sex with those guys for money and we’re just supposed to understand what’s going on under a Hays Code filter, or if there was some kind of midcentury cultural development where old guys would pay hot women to hang out with them and go to parties. Capote wrote the novella the film is based on, and thought of her as a geisha, rather than a out and out hooker.
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Jan 9, 2024 14:52
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I used to know someone whose life plan was to be an escort - you know, be attractive and get paid to escort old rich men to fancy parties and such. No, not sex, just escorting them around. Anyway last I heard she was working as a dom for c-suite types in Manhattan, she'd show up at their office and crush their balls or insult them or whatever.
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Jan 9, 2024 15:34
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Baron von Eevl posted:I used to know someone whose life plan was to be an escort - you know, be attractive and get paid to escort old rich men to fancy parties and such. No, not sex, just escorting them around. Anyway last I heard she was working as a dom for c-suite types in Manhattan, she'd show up at their office and crush their balls or insult them or whatever. Sounds like a success story to me
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Jan 9, 2024 15:38
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Kit Walker posted:Sounds like a success story to me Any story that ends with corporate executives getting their balls crushed is.
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Jan 9, 2024 15:44
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Baron von Eevl posted:I used to know someone whose life plan was to be an escort - you know, be attractive and get paid to escort old rich men to fancy parties and such. No, not sex, just escorting them around. Anyway last I heard she was working as a dom for c-suite types in Manhattan, she'd show up at their office and crush their balls or insult them or whatever. Breakfast at Tiffany’s reboot idea. Let me call Zaslav real quick.
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Jan 9, 2024 15:51
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