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From: mgh@mtuni.UUCP (Marcus Hand)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Taboo words
Message-ID: <112@mtuni.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 11-Dec-85 20:17:15 EST
Article-I.D.: mtuni.112
Posted: Wed Dec 11 20:17:15 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Dec-85 08:15:04 EST
References: <578@unc.unc.UUCP> <464@mit-eddie.UUCP> <603@osiris.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T ISL Holmdel NJ USA
Lines: 20

> > themselves into thinking that the real meaning is disguised; this is
> > sometimes even the case, because some euphemisms are ambiguous (e.g.
> > "making love" used to mean "necking", but now means "fornicating").
> 
> 	Even earlier than that, "making love" meant what you might call
> pitching woo, nothing more than talking. Check out Jane Austen's "Emma",
> in the scene where the heroine is riding in a carriage with a young fellow who
> starts "to make violent love to her". What is meant is impassioned entreaties
> and not tearing her clothes off or anything physical at all.
> -- 
> jcpatilla

Hmm, my grandmother would sometimes refer to people "fornicating on the
doorstep" or admonish someone to "Stop fornicating around!"
Obviously what she meant was "fooling around" or "mucking about."
BTW she wasn't the only source of this strange usage -- it seems to
have been quite common early this century all over England.

-- 
			Marcus Hand	(mtuni!mgh)