'Come' or 'Cum'

[estragon]

Interesting enough sometimes fans will tell me I am spelling come wrong when I don't use cum as a verb.

Estragon was great at pointing out my excessive use of cum as a verb and a noun....

As already mentioned there clearly is a difference....

Thanks for the plug, Silk. But I'm coming (no pun intended) around to the view that "come" as a verb for ejaculating-orgasming will morph into "cum", and the differences in spelling will erode, more or less quickly. I've said before that trying to define our crazy English language is like trying to hit a swiftly moving target. While we may speak of "prescriptive" and "descriptive" dictionaries, and quote manuals of style and whatever authorities there may be, popular speech and the zeitgeist will defeat all of us editors.

 

[Boxlicker101]

To me, it's no big deal, but I like to be consistent. One guy actually trolled me when he disliked my spelling choice. This was when we had thermometers by the comments, so you could see what the vote was.

 

[dawei]

In my one and only story, I've used the word come in some chapters attempting to seem romantic. While, especially from the males point of view, I've used the word cum to seem more vulgar and direct. That might not be correct usage, but it feels like that's the way I want to describe it.

 

[estragon]

In my one and only story, I've used the word come in some chapters attempting to seem romantic. While, especially from the males point of view, I've used the word cum to seem more vulgar and direct. That might not be correct usage, but it feels like that's the way I want to describe it.

dawei, exactly my point. Trying to make "rules" for this crazy English language is like building sandcastles as the tide is coming in: they'll all be washed away.

 

[CarlusMagnus]

I read somewhere that the association of the "Cu" sound with the female genitalia is amazingly widespread linguistically, and even goes back to Proto-Indo-European.

The American Heritage Dictionary gives ku- as an Indo-European root, of which it says: "Hypothetical base of a variety of conceivably related Germanic words meaning 'a hollow space or place, an enclosing object, a round object, a lump,' and some other derivative denotations." It then goes on to list seventeen such, the fifteenth of which is the Germanic kunt- from which it suggests the English word cunt derives.

 

[OpalBlue91]

In my writing, I prefer to use "come" and "came".

 

[sr71plt]

Strange. My copy of the American Heritage Dictionary (3rd edition) doesn't list "ku" at all (nor does the online AHD, except for the element in Ku Klux Klan). There is no German word "kunt" and the German for cunt (vagina) is Scheidenentzundung. (A little hard to find a "ku" root in that.)

 

[Cruel2BKind]

I just think that cum sounds juvenile. There are a lot of words like that, and my least favorite are cum, wang, tits, and several of the names for cocks.

Just a personal complaint, in a lot of the fiction here that takes place in medieval times, or anything like that they like to say 'sword' instead of cock. That just sounds stupid, and I can't really take it seriously after that.

 

[sr71plt]

Just a personal complaint, in a lot of the fiction here that takes place in medieval times, or anything like that they like to say 'sword' instead of cock. That just sounds stupid, and I can't really take it seriously after that.

Well, they are using period-appropriate words. What would be "stupid" and disconcerting would be to use modern terms in medieval-based stories, wouldn't it?

Think it would be a case of you needing to adjust what you read rather than the author adjusting what he/she wrote.

 

[CarlusMagnus]

Strange. My copy of the American Heritage Dictionary (3rd edition) doesn't list "ku" at all (nor does the online AHD, except for the element in Ku Klux Klan). There is no German word "kunt" and the German for cunt (vagina) is Scheidenentzundung. (A little hard to find a "ku" root in that.)

See the appendix of Indo-European roots.

You have to know how to read the AHD.

Oh—and "German" is a different word from "Germanic". They even mean different things.

 

[sr71plt]

Of course this is (and was) a pedantic takeout "look how smart in the irrelevant I am" discussion from the thread, but, yes, I see about the German/Germanic difference.

And no, I don't know all of the ins and outs of the American Heritage Dictionary, because it's not the standard used by the U.S. publishing industry--so there's rarely a reason to look at it. Webster's Collegiate is the dictionary of choice by U.S. publishing. All others are mainly for folks specializing in minutia.

(but I'll note that there doesn't seem to be a "ku" listing in the "Indo-European Roots" section at the back of my American Heritage dictionary either. Would really like to see that, because I can't see the American Heritage going out of its way to give a derivation for "cunt.")

 

[CarlusMagnus]

Of course this is (and was) a pedantic takeout "look how smart in the irrelevant I am" discussion from the thread, but, yes, I see about the German/Germanic difference.

And no, I don't know all of the ins and outs of the American Heritage Dictionary, because it's not the standard used by the U.S. publishing industry--so there's rarely a reason to look at it. Webster's Collegiate is the dictionary of choice by U.S. publishing. All others are mainly for folks specializing in minutia.

You don't know it, so it's irrelevant. I understand.

(but I'll note that there doesn't seem to be a "ku" listing in the "Indo-European Roots" section at the back of my American Heritage dictionary either. Would really like to see that, because I can't see the American Heritage going out of its way to give a derivation for "cunt.")

The attachments are scans from TAHD, First Edition, probably the last printing, in 1980. The right side of the first one is clipped because the right end of the lines wouldn't lie flat on the platen—and I won't tear a page out of a book for anyone.

 

[estragon]

"While we may speak of 'prescriptive' and 'descriptive' dictionaries, and quote manuals of style and whatever authorities there may be, popular speech and the zeitgeist will defeat all of us editors." And anybody else who wants to put language into neat little boxes.

The dictionaries, manuals and the like serve to create uniformity and avoid surprises and idiosyncracies, that would distract the reader. I suppose publishers love uniformity the same way Campbell's or Heinz loves its own tomato soup--the consumer knows exactly what s/he is getting every time.

But common usage, spoken or written, is always out in front of the dictionaries and manuals.

 

[sr71plt]

Yep, publishers will always be behind the "change" curve--because most of their buying readers are as well. They publish to the lowest common denominator of their readership (with the readership of specific publishers being different from one another) precisely because they want to be able to stay in business to keep publishing to that readership (which wouldn't have stuff to read if publishers couldn't afford to publish it).