Now that I have your attention, I'd like to ask AWADers from around the world about this word. A poster in another place said: "My projects are a copulation of science and history". This led to some mildly ribald comments from other posters and the poster, who was a Canadian who had also spent some time in the UK, insisted that this was the first time his use of the word in this way as a synonym for mixture or combination had been thought out of the ordinary, suggesting that the problem stemmed from a US usage. When I then mentioned that I had never heard of the word except in the sexual sense, and the related word copulative as a grammatical term, well let's just say I received a most unAWADlike answer.

So what do AWADers think? Could you use the word copulation in a non-sexual sense? I did wonder if the poster was actually a francophone; any comments bel?

Bingley

Bingley