People can read filth into almost anything you say, if they have a
mind to. 'Pussy' has not been corrupted to the extreme like the word
'gay' has. Luckily, English is a living, vibrant tongue, hence change
is constant - and such changes of meaning mainly come up from the
streets and not down from academia.
How often do the dons of Oxford sit to deliberate on accepting changes
to our tongue? Every five years? When do they bring forth a new
edition of the Oxford Dictionary?
Out of interest, I have read recently that 8% of the world's flora is
endangered, 18% of mammals, but a staggering 40% of languages. Where
I've been living (Gibb R., Northern Australia) is a case in point.
Certain words certainly live on, but they are wrapped up in a kind of
'station' English. (One little student could not say 'they'. Each time
she came to the word, she would say 'them mob' - that's their English
term for 'they'. They had a whole different vocab for the cattle at
mustering time - words I couldn't get my mouth around often >g<)
I'm sitting up here, on broadband, at a B&B in the beautiful town of
Broome on the coast of North West Australia. I cannot tell you how
beautiful this place is. Perhaps we should have our first PoetryEtc
Poetry Festival here ... Say, in 2010? Enuff time for us all to save
and plan?
Ambitious Andrew, always dreaming of getting us all together at one
point on the planet.
On 27/09/2007, Joanna Boulter <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Now *there's interesting! Is the kissa bit the bit that means cat or
> pussy?Some years back I was on an international retreat for all sorts of
> artists, and there was a Finnish painter there who used to call the house
> cat to her with the words kisu, kisu (sp? keessoo?). I didn't know if this
> meant 'Puss, Puss' or 'here, here'. (Have just realised I could have put
> 'come, come' instead of 'here', but then how would Kasper know *how* dirty I
> was being?!)
>
> joanna
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Patrick McManus" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2007 9:51 AM
> Subject: Re: Snap, 26 September 07 : Rite of Spring
>
>
> > What about pajunkissa urpu??
> > Cheers P
> >
> > I'll ruminate on the finnish word, get back to you :)
> >
> > KS
> >
>
--
Andrew
http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
http://www.inblogs.net/hispirits
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aburke/
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