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On Sat, 1 Jun 2013 06:28:16 -0700 michael yates <mikedjya...@msn.com> wrote: > maybe a "fuck the ISO and all the > other chowderheads" who have made stupid comments is in order. This seems very much on the right track. What seems to have gotten the ISO politburo's knickers in a twist is, as far as I can see, the use of the word 'tits'. Now why 'tits' should be unsavory while 'breasts' is OK is entirely beyond me, except that the former is vernacular whereas the second, for some reason, is genteel. I can't see why. 'Breasts' seems to me both illiterate and prurient, since in English as she was well-spoke, back in the day, no individual had more than one breast. To pluralize it calls attention to anatomy while purporting to elevate one's gaze therefrom: consummate Pecksniffery. But a great deal of campus-PC diction policing comes down to the enforcement of choosing the genteel expression, with a thin -- very thin -- left cover. I had an aunt -- great-aunt, really -- who used to quote the old chestnut 'horses sweat, men perspire, ladies glow.' She meant it, too. It wasn't till years later that I realized this wasn't original with her. The same dear lady thought it was quite important whether you said 'couch' or 'sofa', 'drapes' or 'curtains', 'dinner' or 'supper' (though the last was almost Talmudically complex; each term was acceptable -- *in its place*). 'Tits' was acceptable too, but only if you were talking about a cow. She would have spelled it 'teats', but pronounced it 'tits'. Spelling it as it sounds would, of course, have been coarse. Auntie, if dire necessity had ever forced her to refer to a lady's tits, would have said 'bosom'. Anybody who ever pluralized it -- 'bosoms' -- would have been cast immediately into the outer darkness. -- m...@smithbowen.net http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org Leur sçavoir n’estoyt que besterye, et leur sapience n’estoyt que moufles, abastardisant les bons et nobles esperitz, et corrumpent toute fleur de ieunesse. ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
