5.0743 Rs: Hanging; Proust; Mis-whatever; F-Word (4/74)

Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Tue, 3 Mar 1992 19:35:15 EST

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 5, No. 0743. Tuesday, 3 Mar 1992.


(1) Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1992 09:45:34 -0500 (16 lines)
From: mccarty@epas.utoronto.ca (W. McCarty)
Subject: hanged again

(2) Date: Tue, 03 Mar 92 15:21:25 CST (7 lines)
From: FREE0927@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu
Subject: Proust Quote Found

(3) Date: Fri, 28 Feb 92 11:14:45 EST (19 lines)
From: Ed Haupt <haupt@pilot.njin.net>
Subject: misandrist and man-hater.

(4) Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1992 17:34:09 -0500 (32 lines)
From: "David A. Hoekema" <hoekema@brahms.udel.edu>
Subject: Fword etymology

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1992 09:45:34 -0500
From: mccarty@epas.utoronto.ca (W. McCarty)
Subject: hanged again

The case of a near re-hanging, cited in a recent note to Humanist,
cannot be unique. One such occurred in Oxford, as I recall, in the
17th century, or perhaps earlier. The closest I can come to a reference --
hardly helpful, I realise, is a book in the library of Jesus College,
Oxford, from the period. But I would guess that some digging would
unearth many such cases. Observing the ferocity of our ancestors over
such acts as extra-marital lovemaking one wonders about the world they
lived in, what they were afraid of, lustful for? Not that ours is any
better in that regard, just different.

Willard McCarty

(2) --------------------------------------------------------------14----
Date: Tue, 03 Mar 92 15:21:25 CST
From: FREE0927@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu
Subject: Proust Quote Found

Thanks for your help in finding my "proust quote"
I finally found it in Jean Cocteau. La Danse de Sophocle. Paris Mercure
de France 1912. Le soir - Le jet d'eau- p133 ed 1912
Sylvie Dangeville
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------27----
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 92 11:14:45 EST
From: Ed Haupt <haupt@pilot.njin.net>
Subject: misandrist and man-hater.

Last word, I hope.

There are two (at least) meanings of synonymy--one based on equivalent
denotation, the other on use in text. By the test of equivalent denotation,
I would argue that man-hater and mysandrist are close equivalents, although
I think man-hater has a connotation which I can't quite describe that makes
it different.

By the test of substitutibility in text, they seem to me barely equivalent.
I would expect to find man-hater in detective novels (sorry for stereotyping,
I just don't read them) which have working-class characters and use only
anglo-saxon root words. "Mysandrist" on the other hand, seems very much
at home on HUMANIST and suitable for other educated venues.

Ed Haupt
(4) --------------------------------------------------------------39----
Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1992 17:34:09 -0500
From: "David A. Hoekema" <hoekema@brahms.udel.edu>
Subject: Fword etymology

Bernard Van't Hul's posting on the alleged etymology of "fuck"
as documented in The American Heritage Dictionary brought to mind
the story related to me in about 1971, when I was a student at
Calvin College and a friend was a grad student in musicology at
Univ. of Michigan but working, as I recall, part-time with some
English grad students doing piecework etymologies for that very
dictionary. (Coincidentally, Prof. Van't Hul was then a prof
at Calvin: I doubt that I ever then discussed with him the
etymology of "fuck," though I seem to recall that the word was
familiar to a few of my contemporaries.)

This friend (whom I ought probably not to name) reported that he
and several fellow workers had spent a marvellous evening
consuming a few bottles of wine and inventing an authentic-sounding
but wholly fictitious etymology, complete with a bogus Old English
equivalent, for the word "fuck." They were delighted to find that
their fabrication made it past the various editorial committees
into the published dictionary.

Perhaps there are other readers of this list who can corroborate
the story--or persuade me that the fabrication was my friend's story
itself, a possibility I would not dismiss entirely.

--David Hoekema <hoekema@brahms.udel.edu>
Executive Director, American Philosophical Association
Associate Professor of Philosophy
University of Delaware || Phone: 302 831-1112
Newark, DE 19716 || FAX: 302 831-8690