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#59806 03/13/02 10:22 AM
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old hand
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Bel, that is good enough for me. If you screamed "TABARNAC"
after you tore off the top of your left index past the fist knuckle, by golly, that is emphatic enough for me. The next time something of that nature happens to me, God forbid, I shall scream "TABARNAC" in honor of the French.




#59807 03/13/02 01:48 PM
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enthusiast
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French swearing uses religious words; English seems to delight in bodily function words; and somewhere long ago, I read that Polish swearing uses disease words (not sure how reliable the source was, but it said that the strongest swear word in POlish was the word for cholera) -- could make for an interesting study!


#59808 03/13/02 03:00 PM
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Pooh-Bah
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Premarin

Pre_ _ _ _ _ / ma_ _ _ / _ _ in _


May I buy a vowel, doc? Or is it somebody else's turn to spin?



#59809 03/13/02 03:05 PM
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Pooh-Bah
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Jumpin' blue jaybirds, Bel! I don't know if there is invective strong enough to suit the accidental loss of a body part. It makes me cringe just to think about it ... is your poor little fingy OK now?

And who else besides me tends, when things are really, really, dire, to say nothing at all? [dark-glowering-storm-clouds-amidst-the-eerie-silence e]


#59810 03/13/02 03:27 PM
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Carpal Tunnel
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buy a vowel

I googled it, Sparts.


#59811 03/13/02 07:00 PM
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Doc C and Faldage have it lettered correctly, at least according to my present understanding.

When I was an extraordinarily naive first-year medical student buying my first stethoscope from Malin's Ethical Pharmacy on Fourteenth Street (south side) between First and Second Avenue, I saw on the shelf behind me a display of tubes of PreMarIn Vaginal Cream. Blushed quietly to myself and decided it must be a contraceptive cream and that the name had to come from "Pre-Marital Intercourse". Mused for a moment about how bold manufacturers were getting (this is the Sixties, remember, the earliest days of the Sexual Revolution)...

It wasn't until years later that I put together the generic name ("conjugated equine estrogens") and the source - pregnant mares' urine - and smiled, and blushed quietly to myself again at my innocence.

And it wasn't until more years had passed that it occurred to me that perhaps I had no real reason to accept the second explanation as having any greater validity than my original one...(except, of course, the Premarin isn't a contraceptive)

Just to be provocative: is that _really_ where the name comes from? Has it been "verified by competent authority," as Pooh-Bah said? As I realized, just because something makes sense doesn't necessarily mean it's correct! :-)

EDIT: For another look at that last statement, read "The Nine Mile Walk" by Harry Kemelman.
For a very abbreviated review, try

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8462/ninemile.htm

#59812 04/01/02 07:57 AM
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The Indonesian word is aduh, pronounced something like ah dooooooo, the second syllable being drawn out according to the depth of anguish being experienced. This is, by the way, the root for the verb mengaduhi, to complain.

Bingley


Bingley
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