David, No. I in fact regret the lingering influence of 17th-century puritanism on English usage. In, say, Italian the cognate verb, pisciare, has always been usable even in what used to be called polite society. Preoccupation with avoiding four-letter words in English has had very unfortunate effects. The forced choice between sounding like a medical textbook or a guttersnipe in talking about the obvious topics is disagreeable.
The word 'micturition' in fact makes me slightly uncomfortable qua latinist. It derives from micturire, to have a need/desire to urinate, rather than from mingere, to urinate. I should be a bit happier with mingurition if it existed, but it does not, and both words are anyway dispensable in English. John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
