‘There is
>no such word as nipplelike, yet mastoid attracts nipplelike, temporal,
>bone, ear and behind. The definition for nipple brings protuberance,
>breast, udder, the female, milk, discharge, mouthpiece and nursing bottle
>and not mastoid, not temporal, nor time, bone, ear, space, or world, etc.
>It is relevant that the exchanges are incompletely reciprocal.’

I was confused by this passage, so I went to my nearest dictionary, the
American Heritage 1981 printing. Sorry: with a wounded shoulder there's no
way I could handle a volume of the OED. It's hard enough typing. Here's
what I found that's pertinent:

mastoid n. 1. the mastoid process (see). ---adj. 1. Pertaining to the
mastoid process. 2. Shaped like a breast or nipple. [New Latin mastoides,
"breast shaped"]

mastoid process. Anatomy. The rear portion of the temporal bone on each
side of the head behind the ear in man and many other animals. Also called
"mastoid," "mastoid bone."

I'll summarize temporal. Aside from meanings associated with time, from the
latin tempus=time, it's also an adjective: of, pertaining to or near the
temples of the skull, from the latin tempus=temple (of the head). My
dictionary offers no explanation of how the Romans derived these very
different things from the same stem. Here's temporal bone: Either of two
complex, three-part bones forming the sides and base of the skull.

Nipple, my dictionary says, derives from archaic neble, nible, diminutives
of neb, nib, a point, a beak, and refers me to neb. neb n. Chiefly
Scottish. 1.a. A beak of a bird. b. A nose or snout. 2. A projecting part,
especially a nib [Middle English neb(b), Old English neb(b). See nabja-

So, in the etymological appendix,

[nabja-. Bird's beak. Germanic root. 1. Old English neb(b). beak: neb,
(nipple). 2. Old Inglish nibba, beak, attested only in one place name): NIB.

So what do I get from all this?
1. "nipplelike" is in no way unique. One can add "-like" to any noun to
denote resemblance and the result is not likely to be listed in most
dictionaries. So, "mastoidlike."

2. similes sometimes become words, often accompanied by the loss of the
original reference. And the direction is usually from more to less
familiar. The body supplies a lot of the references because few things are
more familiar. So, "mastoid process" because to those who have to keep
separate the multitude of bones in the body it's "that one that looks like
a breast," while no one is likely to say "wow! look at the set of
protruding bones on that babe!"

3. We get the word nipple itself in the same manner. Those protogermanic
types wandering the cold Eurasian steppes, where modesty was the rule and
also helped prevent frostbite, saw lots of birds with nice pointy beaks and
referred to other things that shared the attribute pointy as beaks or
beaklike. And so on until they or their old english descendants decided to
apply the word to those pointy things (it's 60 degrees in the
house--they're pointy) that both sexes carry with them but use differently.
When I say nipple I have behind the word (and thanks to my curiosity about
Hejinian's intent I have it front-and-center from now on) the rain-swept
post-iceage world in which nipples of eaither sex were only visible when
the furs off and they were hard and pointy as beaks. When I say mastoid I
have behind me the appropriation of latin for the sake of universality of
terminology in textbooks. Is it relevant that the exchanges are
incompletely reciprocal?

4. Hejinian is being more than a little slippery when she says that
"mastoid attracts nipplelike, temporal, bone, ear and behind." One would
assume that this list is entirely anatomical, but of course it's not.
"Behind" in this context isn't the part that comes last, it's where a
particular bone is in relation to another bone. And it's not "attracted" to
mastoid in any other sense. No one would say that "the broom is mastoid the
door." On the other hand, the definitions don't relate time to mastoid, but
the temporal bone, which is anatomical.

5. Why is this interesting to me? While I'm still not sure if I'd recognize
a "female voice" in a poem, I'm certainly aware that women have a serious
and longstanding gripe. But demonstrating that the gripe exists or
describing it by way of the appearance of scholarship can't further the
cause. Surely the dishonesty will out, and both scholarship and the cause
be brought, unnecessarily, under suspicion.

And it does seem strange for a "language poet," with all the pretence to
scholarship that that implies, to twist language in this manner.

Mark