Sunday, October 28, 2007
Wordie hearts vajayjay
Stephanie Rosenbloom of the The New York Times has an excellent piece about the word "vajayjay," a euphemism for vagina coined on "Grey's Anatomy" and popularized by Oprah Winfrey.
There was some gnashing of teeth on Wordie when vajayjay was first listed a few months ago, but the word fills a linguistic void, according to Rosenbloom: There are a slew of lighthearted euphemisms for male genitalia (enough to constitute a Monty Python song), but fewer for the female equivalent, and fewer still that aren't vulgar or sexist.
Rosenbloom takes a silly word as an occasion to talk to some serious linguists and writers on some interesting topics. Well worth the read.
There was some gnashing of teeth on Wordie when vajayjay was first listed a few months ago, but the word fills a linguistic void, according to Rosenbloom: There are a slew of lighthearted euphemisms for male genitalia (enough to constitute a Monty Python song), but fewer for the female equivalent, and fewer still that aren't vulgar or sexist.
Rosenbloom takes a silly word as an occasion to talk to some serious linguists and writers on some interesting topics. Well worth the read.




