On 13Sep24:0729-0400, John Gilmore wrote: > 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
Opinion adjusted. :-) -- <not cent from sell> May the LORD God bless you exceedingly abundantly! Dave_Craig______________________________________________ "So the universe is not quite as you thought it was. You'd better rearrange your beliefs, then. Because you certainly can't rearrange the universe." __--from_Nightfall_by_Asimov/Silverberg_________________ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
