Word: sexualism
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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MODERN American speech, while not always clear or correct or turned with much style, is supposed to be uncommonly frank. Witness the current explosion of four-letter words and the explicit discussion of sexual topics. In fact, gobbledygook and nice-Nellyism still extend as far as the ear can hear. Housewives on television may chat about their sex lives in terms that a decade ago would have made gynecologists blush; more often than not, these emancipated women still speak about their children's "going to the potty." Government spokesmen talk about "redeployment" of American troops; they mean withdrawal. When...
...image of a generation blessed with a swinging, liberated language is largely an illusion. Despite its swaggering sexual candor, much contemporary speech still hides behind that traditional enemy of plain talk, the euphemism...
...could argue that American English is under siege from linguistic falsehood, but euphemisms today have the nagging persistence of a headache. Despite the increasing use of nudity and sexual innuendo in advertising, Madison Avenue is still the great exponent of talking to "the average person of good upbringing"-as one TV executive has euphemistically described the ordinary American-in ways that won't offend him. Although this is like fooling half the people none of the time, it has produced a handsome bouquet of roses by other names. Thus there is "facial-quality tissue" that is not intended...
...expressions have been built? Or are they simply coarser ways of expressing physical actions and parts of the human anatomy that are more accurately described in less explicit terms? It remains to be seen whether the so-called forbidden words will contribute anything to the honesty and openness of sexual discussion. Perhaps their real value lies in the acidic, expletive power to shock, which is inevitably diminished by overexposure. Perhaps the Victorians, who preferred these words unspoken and unprinted, will prove to have had a point after...
...letters and manuscripts of Martin Luther-in the last two years alone, it has acquired 22 of Luther's first editions. It has letters of Sheridan and Garrick. One of two recorded copies of the abridged edition of John Cleland's Memoirs of Funny Hill which omits the sexual detail. A vast Goldsmith collection. including the first Swedish translations of the Vicar of Wakefield and The Citizen of the World. First editions of Balzac, Stendahl, and Baudelaire. A theatre collection which includes letters of Booth, working scripts of Jean Renoir, letters of John Gielgud, and manuscripts of Shaw. First editions...