Cum Hither
Wednesday, June 15th, 2005 01:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robinturnerI commented earlier on Webster's amusing adult-check page, which came up when I typed in "cock". However, when I entered "cum", no such page appeared, and the only definiton I got was "The thick white fluid containing spermatozoa that is ejaculated by the male genital tract." What it didn't have was the Latin-derived sense I was looking for, as in "She graduated magna cum laude," or "He acted as barman-cum-bouncer."
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no subject
Date: 2005-06-14 10:58 pm (UTC)Or hermaphroditic cum, that is so gender-binary.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-14 11:04 pm (UTC)university OED access to the rescue:
Date: 2005-06-14 11:07 pm (UTC)cum1
Latin preposition, meaning ‘with, together with’, used in English in local names of combined parishes or benefices, as Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Stow-cum-Quy, where it originated in Latin documents. Also in several much-used Latin phrases, as cum grano salis (or familiarly cum grano), lit. ‘with a grain of salt,’ i.e. with some caution or reserve; cum privilegio (ad imprimendum solum) with privilege (of sole printing); and in expressions, technical or humorous, imitating these, e.g. cum dividend (cum div.) relating to the sale or transfer of stock or shares together with the dividend about to be paid on them. Freq. used as a combining word to indicate a dual nature or function.
I had never quite understood its use before (I thought it had a degree of change in aspect, like "erstwhile").
Re: university OED access to the rescue:
Date: 2005-06-14 11:13 pm (UTC)Re: university OED access to the rescue:
Date: 2005-06-14 11:17 pm (UTC)For me, the english definitions are nice anyhow, 'cause I think they often can put the meaning more clearly than i could -- my word definitions tend to be filled with things like "with an overtone of X and a suggestion that Y".
Re: university OED access to the rescue:
Date: 2005-06-14 11:26 pm (UTC)The overtones and suggestions are useful. If I were writing a longer dictionary, and had an extra year to do it in, I would use this kind of thing more in my definitions. I often run into the problem that modern Turkish has a much smaller vocabulary than English, so the same Turkish word is used to translate half a dozen English words, with consequent loss of nuance. But if my publishers want nuance, they'll have to pay me a lot more!
Gun Cocking
Date: 2005-06-16 03:25 pm (UTC)i just asked my turkish fruit guy here in NYC, and he said something about horoza tufek hazirmak or something along those lines...i think you should find somebody who just finished their askerlik...
but you know that bartender-cum-bouncer can be hem barmen hemde fedai. I don't think that barmen'le fedaisi calisan bi insan works...
Re: Gun Cocking
Date: 2005-06-16 07:59 pm (UTC)By the way, did I tell you about the time my father-in-law (a photojournalist) accompanied Demirel on the first official visit to Azerbaijan. They were met by an honour guard at the airport, and had to try hard not to crack up when the drill sergeant shouted out the order to shoulder arms: "Yaraklar omuza!"
Re: Gun Cocking
Date: 2005-06-16 08:15 pm (UTC)Shoooooooooooouuuulder
...Weenies!
oh dear.
Yeah, i was talking to the fruit guy and i was just like, WTF?, Homoza tufek hazirlamak? well, if you say so...then again, looking at seslisozluk and zargan just have deklansor for cameras...hmm. i'll call a friend (turk) who just finished his military duty.
He didn't know, but said he'd call his mom.