Question arises from considering Carmina Burana:

One of the sections contains the text "Veni, veni pulchra." Which if I'm not mistaken means "Come hither, lovely one" or "C'mere, babe!" depending on which vernacular you are using for the moment.

Is not then "feminine pulchritude" linguistically redundant? How can there be any other kind?

I used to think many women were beautiful, but men could not aspire to a rating above
"handsome". I was in no danger of being so labelled. However, a lady Latin teacher told
me that men could indeed be beautiful. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Atomica: pul·chri·tude (pŭl'krĭ-tûd', -tyûd')
n.
Great physical beauty and appeal.

[Middle English pulcritude, from Latin pulchritûdô, from pulcher, pulchr-, beautiful.]


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The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
No gender indicated. Not a word I've used in any case, so I have no habit of assocating it with one or the other.

No gender indicated...I have no habit of associating it with one or the other

It seems to be one of those words that is seldom if ever used except as part of a phrase. I've never seen it in any other context except Feminine Pulchritude - a little like the "rosy-fingered Dawn" that Homer used so paradigmatically; you can't have one without the other. Which is probably the reason I thought it was a feminine noun without a masculine equivalent.

Hmm--both you docs have a good point; our society simply does not refer to men as being "beautiful", in ordinary conversation.

Of course, Michael Jackson.......
I have heard and read so many negtive things about michael and i'm sick of it.I just wanna
let the real wackos and haters know
Michael Jackson is the most BEAUTIFUL,SEXY,TALANTED man on the face of this earth.

Posted by: Rania on November 17, 2002 04:42 AM
Yo rania i agree with u 100%. i mean he is gorgeous and any1 that can't see that is blind.
damn he's so sexy!

Posted by: Janet on November 17, 2002 04:47 AM
He is georgeous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: Desire on November 17, 2002 10:24

Is not then "feminine pulchritude" linguistically redundant?

A) In the Latin example, pulchra is an adjective acting as a noun. Cf. The Young and the Restless. As such it has masculine, feminine and neuter forms, i.e., pulcher, pulchra, pulchrum. The definition given in my Latin dictionary is beautiful, beauteous, fair, handsome.

2) A little redundancy now and then din't never hurt nobody.

There are beautiful men and beautiful boys, too. I'd say Richard Chamberlain in his younger years was beautiful. Also, I thought the boy who played Romeo in the Romeo and Juliet that came out in the early 70s was beautiful. To me at least, a man appears to be beautiful when his face has feminine characteristics. For example, some men have thick, long, silky eyelashes. If their skin is smooth, their mouths a little full, their eyes filled with crystalline color, a little flush appearing now and then in the face, and if they possess ease and grace, men can be beautiful. Remove their masculine garb, put them into tight-fitted sequin dresses (maybe sea green or fuschia), set them upon stillettos, manicure their nails, do up their hair, dangle sparkling earrings from their lobes, teach them to walk the way Italian women can, pull up the Austrian puff upon a whole lot them:

Gorgeous!

[I've been wanting to use Austrian puff after having read about it last week on a link someone gave us.What a perfect place for it right here to puff up male pulchritude.]

Men can be beautiful and more. They can even aspire to Faldage's heights.

a man appears to be beautiful when his face has feminine characteristics.

Making him richly endowed with feminine pulchritude?

> Our society simply does not refer to men as being "beautiful", in ordinary conversation.

... this is largely particular to English, I think.

I would venture to say that the unifying factor when refering to women is not that we find them all beautiful or desire them all, but that we lament and pity them and their treatment by our dominator culture. They encompass all our sighs and aches. When we're young we mourn just one, later women in general.

Men can be beautiful and more. They can even aspire to Faldage's heights.

(Will I? ... Should I? What would be the consequences? But it's soooo just an open invitation! No it's not, control yourself.)

They can even aspire to Faldage's heights.

I chose to ignore it on purely modest grounds or at least that's my rationale. She was parbly just being sarcastic.

Roman kids had it rough. They were either pyew-ers, or pyew-ellas.

pyew-ers, or pyew-ellas

Oh, pooh!

Speaking of peeyew, I wonder how the use of pure-puer in tanning of leather was discovered.

I would venture to say that the unifying factor when refering to women is not that we find them all beautiful or
desire them all, but that we lament and pity them and their treatment by our dominator culture. They
encompass all our sighs and aches. When we're young we mourn just one, later women in general.

No wonder men and women can't make relationships work. We're busy pitying each other.

"Monica grasped at another straw: perhaps what he felt for Amanda was pity? She hoped so, pity being, in her experience, a bar to love." (copyright me, 1995 or 1996, forget which, from a never-published short story)

> We're busy pitying each other.

Well, that or putting one another on a pedestal.

Well, that or putting one another on a pedestal.

So true - I sit corrected!

I had never noticed this word before the starter post. I am struck by the look of it, it seems an ugly combination of letters that produces a most uninviting sound. What is the word for a word that sounds like it should mean the opposite?

Dear Dody: I can't think of any words whose sound especially fits the meaning, of course
excluding onomatopoeia. Perhaps we should have stayed with the Frehch "beauté"
By contrast, I remember seeing a quote that "cellar door" was one of the most
beautiful sounding English word. I have never seen a beautiful cellar door.