well I dont know, but I think many would still say 'puss' & 'here puss
puss,' & I have to wonder if the obscene use of 'pussy' isn't the usage
that's old-fashioned, so many other terms including the famous four
letters having come to the fore, so to speak....
& pussy-willow, certainly.
(where's the rodent when we need him?)
Doug
On 26-Sep-07, at 11:49 PM, kasper salonen wrote:
> printed proof, certainly not. and I doubt whether even corpora would
> reveal my take to be true. but it's my intuition as a native language
> user, and as a representative of a younger generation than I'd assume
> your 'control group' comes from. :) in the case of the catkin, I can
> understand if the word is still in frequent use because it's a name of
> a plant or the part of a plant, I believe that biological names are
> slower to fade out because so many are rooted in colloquial & regional
> variants that are specialised in a way.
>
> ask anyone under 25 what the first thing is that comes ot their heads
> when you say the word 'pussy'. many would definitely say 'pussycat',
> but I think a lot of language users would feel that the description
> you gave of a catkin, 'very soft and silky', can be used for something
> only slightly more controversial.
>
> I'll ruminate on the finnish word, get back to you :)
Douglas Barbour
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When you combine two unique voices
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