By Anatoly Liberman
When we deal with the origin of ship and boat (the names of things pertaining to material culture), problems are almost predictable. Such words may have been borrowed from an unknown language (or from an attested language, but definitive proof of the connection is wanting) or coined in a way we are unable to reconstruct, but wife? Yet its etymology is no less obscure. My proposal will add to the existing stock of conjectures, and the future will show whether it has any chance of survival, let alone acceptance.
Michael Sauers starts a small blog discussion about the Guinness Book of World Records causing trouble in school libraries based on a longer back and forth on the SYSTEMS mailing list including this interesting comment. [thanks david]
Most* of what I've read about the Higher Power of Lucky "scrotum kerfluffle" (or "uproar," if you prefer, or "controversy") focuses on librarians** and book buying and censorship.***
Now it's time for an experienced (borderline old) career-long teacher of 9-11 year-olds to have her own personal tantrum about being lumped together with sissy teachers who are too afraid? modest? unsure of the meaning themselves? weak in the knees? to deal with a child who might ask what a scrotum is! (It's like a librarian being told, "The education and correct upbringing of a child is the responsibility of parents and teachers, and not of someone who merely knows what Dewey is and can sort books accordingly." Makes your blood boil a little, doesn't it?)
Teaching is not for sissies! We're an integral part of the team (team, not village, and yes, I would include the librarians) who raise the children of our world. We're important because we're NOT the parents. Kids can talk to us in ways they can't talk to their parents, and we can answer them with an honesty parents sometimes can't manage. Recently, sitting around the "coffee table" in my classroom playing Scrabble with about half-a-class worth of kids, A Boy turned to me and asked, "Can guys get breast cancer?" (I've had it, I talk about it. Could that be why a 10 year-old boy could say BREAST right out loud?) Not only could I answer his question without skipping a beat (yes, they can), I could also point out that men do have breasts, albeit undeveloped/non milk-producing ones, and they have the nipples to prove it. Yes, I said nipples, yes, they giggled, and then the conversation went on in other directions. Over the course of my career, I have always insisted that babies are in their mother's uteruses, not their stomachs. When asked if my dog, who was visiting the classroom and who was rolled over on her back when the question was asked, is a boy or a girl, I pointed out that she does not have a penis, so obviously, she is a girl. Breast, uterus, penis, nipple, scrotum. All words for human body parts. They are not "dirty" words unless we refuse to say them or explain them or use them in their proper context.
Okay. I'm done. Now I'm going to go read the book.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
*Do a blog search yourself. (I recommend you filter it.) There are pages and pages and PAGES of posts on the Great Scrotum Debate of 2007. I only read the ones posted in the last 8 hours.
**An author makes it clear that authors do not sneak. (Roger hates that part, too.)
***This is the smartest rant I found****.
****See * above.
Best non sequitur “what the hell” thing to show up on any of my feeds since I got a google homepage. Thanks for sharing this one, despite the censorship.
Body parts certainly cause a great deal of discomfort for school libraries. I looked at our copy just to educate myself, and I’m really not sure what the objection is. While there is a photograph of the record-breaking breast implants, they are covered; and the astonishing penis is only given a few lines of text.
Were those necessary inclusions? Perhaps not, but they also aren’t out of place on a page with extreme tattoos, piercings and a mutated waistline.
I just did a “wtf” when I read they tore the page out? No wonder so many kids grow up “messed up” if the grown ups around them can’t even handle something like the largest genitalia. As if they did not when they were that age go into the dictionary to look up the “naughty” words. Did their adults start using black marker for certain words also? This is the kind of stuff that makes me wonder about public schools (and makes me glad we do a lot of supplementing at home for our daughter. And by the way, she has read the Guinness Book a few times. She is doing fine).
technically, it is the record for a penis extension, achieved by implants and physiotherapy.
I think it is a pretty non-controversial page, not likely to spur kids to engage in physiotherapy.
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