New Developments on the Come/Cum Front

[dr_mabeuse]

I've been working with a publisher whose guidelines are that it's "cum" for the verb, but "come" for the noun.

On the one hand that's understandable, because it correlates with "pre-cum", which is always written that way and never as "pre-come".

On the other hand, if you want consistency with "pre-cum", then "cum" should apply to the noun and not the verb. It also introduces the problem that "cum" is only different from "come" in the present tense. "Cum" apparently conjugates the same as "come" in all other tenses.

I've always been in the solid "come" camp on this issue, but i guess now I'll have to change. This problem could divide pornsters into two warring camps. It's like the Great Schism in religion.

---dr.M.

 

[cantdog]

They're completely fulla shit

Come is the verb.

Come is never a noun, thus far.

Well, then, cum is the noun.

cantdog

 

[HawaiiBill]

'Come' as both noun and verb in OED

To us Hawaiians, the "Great Divide" takes back seat to our "Great Crack!" -- runs into the ocean to the West of Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park.

But, hey, they gave it to me so I hafta' use it, right? Oxford English Dictionary shows 'come' in its sexual connotations as both noun and verb. OED gives nothing to cum wherever sex enters the picture and pretty much likes it only as it's Latin equivalent, with. Hmmm.

As the OED puts it as a verb:
17. To experience sexual orgasm. Also with off. slang.

a1650 Walking in Meadow Green in Bp. Percy's Loose Songs (1868) Then off he came, & blusht for shame soe soone that he had endit. 1714 Cabinet of Love, Just as we came, I cried, ‘I faint! I die!’ c1888-94 My Secret Life III. 143 ‘Shove on,’ said she, ‘I was just coming.’ 1922 JOYCE Ulysses 489 Suppose you..came too quick with your best girl. Ibid. 752 Yet I never came properly till I was what 22. 1928 D. H. LAWRENCE Lady Chatt. x. 159 ‘We came off together that time,’ he said. Ibid. xiv. 242 And when I'd come and really finished, then she'd start on her own account. 1963 D. LESSING Man & Two Women 35 Just as he decided, Right, it's enough, now I shall have her properly; she made him come. 1969 P. ROTH Portnoy's Complaint 183 Did you warn her you were going to shoot, or did you just come off and let her worry?

...and as a noun:

5. [f. COME v.] Semen ejaculated at sexual climax, esp. spilt ejaculate. Also (rarely), fluid secreted by the vagina during sexual play. Cf. COME v. 17. slang.

1923 J. MANCHON Le Slang 90 Come, sperme. 1967 R. BRAUTIGAN Trout Fishing in Amer. 25 The walls, the floor and even the roof of the hut were coated with your sperm and her come. 1969 P. ROTH Portnoy's Complaint 183 Tell me! what did she do with your hot come! 1976 Miss London 23 Aug. 12/4 His attitude to sex is ambivalent. ‘Each night I had to clean the come off the back seat of the cab,’ he remarks in reasonable disgust.
(From the Oxford English Dictionary online, 2004)

I don't have a dog in this fight so somebody flip a coin. Looks as though that publisher hasn't got a leg to stand on -- but, being a publisher, he doesn't need one!

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Re: 'Come' as both noun and verb in OED

I don't have a dog in this fight so somebody flip a coin. Looks as though that publisher hasn't got a leg to stand on -- but, being a publisher, he doesn't need one!

That's the way I figure it. Whatever he wants, as long as he pays. I can think of better things to fight about.

---dr.M.

 

[snooper]

... It also introduces the problem that "cum" is only different from "come" in the present tense. "Cum" apparently conjugates the same as "come" in all other tenses. ...

Not necessarily:

I cum. I am cumming. I cummed.

The verb is irregular in the pluperfect, which is:

Shit, you're not?

 

[cantdog]

I submitted my Jip story, and did a dr_Mab on it, a global search-and-replace of cum with come, wherever it occurred. It looks better, less obtrusive.

I'll do it from now on. Thanks, doc! Bill, my regards.

cantdog

 

[gystex]

It's worth mentioning that such authorities as Penthouse Magazine and sex-advice columnist Dan Savage use "come" exclusively for noun or verb.

 

[snooper]

... a global search-and-replace of cum with come ...

Not literally, I hope.

"She found the comeulative effect of his charm was to make her succomeb."

The funniest one of these I had as an editor was where the author had had a character "Tom" and changed him to "Bill", obviously at the last minute. I first spotted it when I read "Billorrow we're going to pick billatoes."