Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

I once read a piece of “erotica” that referred to the heroine’s nipples as “prehensile tissue.”

That was probably more than a decade ago, and I’m still getting the giggles.

Damn, I just did a spit take while drinking my Starbucks. That stuff is expensive.

Any man who has read this is now crossing his legs protectively and will start twitching, and not in a good way, the next time any woman comes near his crown jewels.

Any man who has read this is now crossing his legs protectively and will start twitching, and not in a good way, the next time any woman comes near his crown jewels

ESPECIALLY if she’s carrying power tools.

It must be a spell check mistake. Right? Pretty please? Romance writers are smart ladies, but Word’s spellchecker ... sometimes it’s confused.

I have not encountered that one. If I ever do I’ll be sure to let my husband read it.

It must be a spell check mistake. Right? Pretty please? Romance writers are smart ladies, but Word’s spellchecker ... sometimes it’s confused.

I’d like to think so, but I have my doubts. I see these kinds of word choice errors all the time and for most of them there is no way it’s a spellcheck issue. A couple of recent “favorites” were found in the same book.

First, there was a reference to an al fresco painting in a building lobby. Um huh? A fresco is a painting, al fresco means outdoors. 

Second, there is a point where the heroine is talking to her brother about the fact that her ex is getting married. He expresses surprise that she’s not “balling and sniveling.” Um, bawling means crying. Balling is a totally different thing. Of course, strictly speaking the heroine did spent most of the book balling and sniveling, but I really don’t think the author meant to point that out.

He expresses surprise that she’s not “balling and sniveling.”

OK, second spit take of the day. I need to finish this damn coffee.

Hell, I’m even over the use of lave, having seen it in umpteen-million fanfics over the past decade. Licking is a perfectly serviceable word, people. Try using that for awhile.

The other problem with this mess is that if the guy has a half decent vocabulary, or used to watch Friends, the chick isn’t going to get the chance to lave or lathe his man part because he’s going to get dressed and stomp off in a huff after she calls it a nubbin.  What is up with that?

You can refer to a nipple as a nubbin if you feel that you must. If you’re desperate you can use it to describe part of your girly bits, but using it to describe a guy’s junk is just rude.

To quote Prof. Henry Higgins

“By right she should be taken out and hung,
For the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue.”

Maybe these women meant this type of lathe?

http://users.starpower.net/larch78/lathemaster/

Because, if they’re referring to the manjunk as “nubbin”, then lathing it elsewhere and giving it more “oomph” might be what’s called for here…just sayin.

ps. Yeah, I’ve seen “lathe” all over the place. Cracks me up.

Let’s see, I started reading erotic romance in 2003.  That same year, I read this same explanation regarding this same term in a forum, can’t even remember which. 

So I see that the more things change, the more they stay the same ...

Thanks for the laugh of the day—I really needed it.  Though I think I need to bleach my brain after the image of the heroine’s prehensile nipples.

Thanks for the laugh of the day—I really needed it.  Though I think I need to bleach my brain after the image of the heroine’s prehensile nipples.

Do you think that means she can swing by them? I’m just saying . . . those prehensile nipples wouldn’t scare off Kirk.

I have managed to not spit my coffee or breakfast at the monitor; but, it has taken very diligent work on my part.  Having said that I really wish that editors and writers would stop using the desk thesaurus when writing & editing well… anything.  I am never impressed by words I have to look up, I am only annoyed.

Do you think that means she can swing by them? I’m just saying . . . those prehensile nipples wouldn’t scare off Kirk.

Aw, dammit, Kalen, I just snorted tea up my nose.

But what about BDSM erotica, hmm?  Maybe some guys enjoy being lathed.  You never know.

“By right she should be taken out and hung,
For the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue.”

I never understood why Prof. Higgins didn’t know that meat is hung; a person is hanged.  Although in the interests of preserving the rhyme, she might have to cold-bloodedly murder the English wang, which I think is where the lathing might come in…

Thank you for this important post.

SMIRK!
If only I could convince some folks that the word ‘smirk’ does not mean a small smile.  It means a nasty little grin that says ‘I know something you don’t’.

If only I could convince some folks that the word ‘smirk’ does not mean a small smile.  It means a nasty little grin that says ‘I know something you don’t’.

Yeah, but at least it IS a smile.  Lathe and lave NSM with the similarities.

While you are composing lessons in grammar, would you please add one about the difference between “good” and “well”, the difference between “finished” and “done” and while we are at it, when the proper time to use “between” and “among” would be great also.

I have to say that I haven’t come across anyone “lathing” anything in erotica, but since my FIL was a woodworker and actually owned several lathes, I would have noticed that one and definately banged my head about it.

@Cat - thanks, I always wonder why Prof. Higgins got that one wrong as well.  Though “hung” seems to be a common error as the police drama I was watching the other day used it in reference to the man who had hanged himself.

Maybe the lathing is to remove those pesky participles that dangle ?

And then there’s “bonified” ... [bona fide]

Which I have seen more than once, from different authors, as in “he was a bonified hero” with an arousal.

Just sayin’ ~

spamword “against32” - her prehensile nipples pressed against her size-32 chest? sorry, not clever at these

I’m not sure that erotica and erotic romance authors are the only people who use “lave” (and are therefore at risk of using “lathe.”)

The first time I read “lave” in a sexual context was in a Gena Showalter book. She used it correctly, but I remember thinking, “I haven’t seen that word in a long time.” Gena might have sexy scenes, but she’s not an author of erotic romance, is she? She’s certainly not an author or erotica.

Do you think that means she can swing by them? I’m just saying . . . those prehensile nipples wouldn’t scare off Kirk.

Aw, dammit, Kalen, I just snorted tea up my nose.

My work here is done . . .

Note to self: don’t read this site while drinking orange juice.

(And Kalen - you’re not helping)

I have definitely seen “lath” in mainstream romance novels and wondered if they made an arbor (like lath board.) It was some wierd composite of lathe, lave, and lash. I have been questioning this word use without bothering to look it up for at least 10 years. Thank you, I feel better now.

But I saw illusive for elusive today in a well written book. 

And I had to learn “chaise longue” not “chaise lounge” embarassingly late in life myself.

I have to confess…I used the word ‘nubbin’ in my first book (The Given). It’s SO EMBARASSING to even admit that. Luckily, I saw the error of my ways.

She wedged his erection between two drill points, spun it at over 2200 rpm and applied a sharp edge to the outside to carve away the unwanted wood.

Ooooo, sexy!

Guilty!

Oh, God (hanging head here) I am SO guilty of this! I know the difference, I swear I do, but sometimes my fingers go flying across the keyboard and I type one word when I’m thinking another.

And once (that I know of) that stupid lathe made it through all edits and ended up in print.

Mea culpa…mea culpa…mea culpa…please don’t flog me Sarah. Or lathe me.

And I had to learn “chaise longue” not “chaise lounge” embarassingly late in life myself.

At least you knew it wasn’t “chase lounge”.  That one gave me all sorts of fun mental pictures, but not the one the author was aiming for.

Ick, I hate the word nubbin. Can’t wait to read that post.

Reminds me of my all-time favorite fortune slip from a fortune cookie:

“Never look a gifted horse in the mouth.”

I first came across lathe for lave in category romances—not erotica!— in the early 1980s.  I was baffled by it at first, and wondered if it was simply some American usage unknown to me (like careen for career, which is apparently okay in AE). 
‘Lave’ not a very common word in modern English, so one might think that if someone wanted to use something in the ‘wash/lick’ range, they would manage to get it right.

Nubbin is horrid. Nub is marginally less horrid. Clit is a fantastic word—so clean and confident and perky. It makes writing contemporary stuff a joy.  But what about historical erotica? I’m trying to write a medieval now, and I’m killing myself trying to avoid the nub.

“Lathe”  made me giggle, “prehensile nipples” made me laugh, but this is the one that got the actual spit-take:

I’m killing myself trying to avoid the nub.

Because that so aptly describes some unsatisfying sexual encounters in my college days….

Nothing brightens my day like a good laugh with the Bitchery—thanks ladies!

LOL! Now, that word might come into play if there is a drill-do involved.

(like careen for career, which is apparently okay in AE).

Huh??? I’m guessing the writer simply didn’t really know the word they wanted. In the ballroom my duchess in her hoops might careen [turn], but when fleeing the villain she would career [run] (unless she careened around a corner, LOL!).

I utterly adore other readers with the same grammatical and word use nitpickyness that I have. My current pet peeve is seeing “prostrate” instead of “prostate” in MM romance. *headdesk*

Nubbin is horrid. Nub is marginally less horrid. Clit is a fantastic word—so clean and confident and perky. It makes writing contemporary stuff a joy.  But what about historical erotica? I’m trying to write a medieval now, and I’m killing myself trying to avoid the nub.

We had a discussion about this topic at one point (Victoria Dahl and I made everyone squirm). Can’t remember if it was on this site or over on History Hoydens (I think it was here). Let me see if I can find it . . .

One that brought me up short, I think in a Lilian Saintcrow book, was a character who was apparently supposed to be empathic, but was emphatic instead. I guess she read others emotions very forcefully.

Kalen, if you check in American dictionaries, careen is now accepted with the meaning ‘to move rapidly and in an uncontrolled fashion, lurching from side to side’. 
I am sure that it originated as an error for career, but it is evidently so commonly used in AE that the new meaning has made it into the dictionaries.  In a British English dictionary, it still means only, ‘to clean the hull of a boat by turning it on its side and scraping it down’—from Latin carina, a hull.
:)

Nubs, nubbins and (ugh) ‘clits’.  Nubs and nubbins don’t bother me, though I much prefer the longer form:  I am fine with clitoris, too, which seems to me to have some dignity.  But clit turns me off violently.  I hate the word.  I find it not only unromantic, but anti-erotic.  Nasty, ugly, vulgar little word. 
Which all goes to show that you can’t please all your readers all of the time!  Any terminology used by a writer in these difficult contexts is going to resonate well with some readers (particularly those whose cultural and generational background matches the author’s own), and will infuriate some others, either by seeming fluffy and euphemistic, or crude, or just plain silly.  All that a writer can do is to be consistent and true to herself.  She is bound to offend somebody, but that’s life, right?  I have managed to offend people here occasionally by writing things that would be the common currency of friendly conversation in the circles in which I move.  We all just have to live with it.
But I thought I’d let you lot know that clit (gosh, I find it harder to type than cunt) is not universally approved.
;)

NERD ALERT!
According to Merriam-Webster, “careen” comes from the Middle French word “carine”, (ca. 1583) and refers to the side of a ship.
It originally meant putting a ship over on its side in order to clean it. Thus, the derivative definition about lurching to the side.

Yay for etymology!!

On behalf of the male readership:

Ouch.

Ouch ouch ouch.

May it be as Our Hostess has decreed (and I think I’ll avoid the BDSM works that postulate characters who like the described experience….).

[spamword: walked22.  More walking than any hero would be doing after having been lathed.]

The one that drives me crazy is someone who’s both prone AND facing upward.  How do they manage that?  prone = face down, lying on your belly.  Lying on your back is supine.

Kalen, if you check in American dictionaries, careen is now accepted with the meaning ‘to move rapidly and in an uncontrolled fashion, lurching from side to side’. 
I am sure that it originated as an error for career, but it is evidently so commonly used in AE that the new meaning has made it into the dictionaries.  In a British English dictionary, it still means only, ‘to clean the hull of a boat by turning it on its side and scraping it down’—from Latin carina, a hull.

Per OED: “A ship is said to careen when she inclines to one side, or lies over when sailing on a wind” (1763). I’ve always thought of this as turning, but I can see that I’m misconstruing the leaning for turning. But career is to run at an all out gallop, so I don’t see what that has to do with lurching from side to side (whereas I do see what careening has to do with such a motion).

Yes!!  Down with the ‘nubbin’!!!  That word is awful, and it should never be written, must less be used in the following combinations: “nubbin of womanhood”; “nubbin of pleasure”; “her womanly nubbin”; and worst of all “vaginal nubbin” (which I can’t for the life of me remember where I read, but I immediately put the book in my discard pile after saying, “ewwwww!” for about a day or so).

And, incidentally, doesn’t the use of “lave” give anyone else the image of a cat grooming itself?  Doesn’t seem like a very good blowjob technique to me, although the manjunk would be spotless and tangle free.

manroot

really, is there anything worse? something that would actually deserve to be lathed (and made of the right substance, as well!)

All I can think when I see “lathe” used in reference to a penis is that they are taking the whole “ribbed for her pleasure” thing a bit too far.

Had to post b/c spam word is ball32 and I’m thinking if she really did lathe his you-know-what it would be in 32 pieces.

On the plus side…I didn’t use ““vaginal nubbin”  cause EEEWWW

oh thank you for making me laugh today!!!!!!! and I agree, please, can we dispense with ‘nubbin’? It sounds silly and naive in an oh-so-not-good way.

I had thought the use of careen in a ‘bouncing off the walls madly’ sense was not derived from ‘career’ but was a conflation with ‘carom’.  Carom dates to 1779 and, besides being a sort of shot in billiards, is used in the sense of ‘a rebounding, especially at an angle’.

@AgTigress.  Thank you. I thought I was the only one.

The adjective carinated is widely used in certain classes of archaeological description, and refers to a ‘keeled’ profile - a sharp change of angle, as in the keel of a boat.  This is more directly derived from the Latin than the verb careen.
I hadn’t thought of carom as another source of confusion, but it may well be in the mix there somewhere, along with careen and career.
The point I was making originally was simply that there are far more and greater differences between American and British/Commonwealth usage than many writers and readers realise.  Careen is just one minor, but sometimes disconcerting, example.
Don’t get me started on the use and meaning of quite, for example.  Just don’t tell a Brit that you found her new book ‘quite good’ if you want to flatter her…

It’s a shame the erotic lexicon is so very limited. I’m relatively new to this genre, but it seems to me that there is an extreme overabundance of nipping and laving. It’s to the point now that when I’m being intimate with my significant other I wonder about it: “Should I being doing more nipping right now? And how’s my laving? Have I laved enought yet? What’s better, stationary laving, say at the throat, or the use of laving to get from point A to point B - maybe from the chest to, you know, the root of the nubbin….”

“She lathed his *rod until it became a nubbin...”

* or “shaft” or “manroot” or “sabre” or “love-cleaver”
Lets become a little more adroit with language and add some better (and more sensible) phrases to the lexicon.

Good grief! Gonna spring this “lathing” on my husband when he’s making like a couch potato in front of the tv tonight, and watch him squirm, LOL.

I have to add my personal favorite in the spellcheck fail stakes: “neither-hole” instead of “nether-hole”. Kinda hard for the guy to be having sex if he’s sticking it in “neither hole”, don’t you think?

Um, yes.  It was a spell check mistake - actually, a failure to read spell check before hitting “change.”  Still makes me blush to think about it.  The Hub thought it was funny (it wasn’t!) because I’m scared to death of all his woodworking tools, including the lathe - convinced I’ll lose a couple fingers if I ever try to use them.  Apparently, there are a lot of chick wood turners.

A lesson in humility, and one to be remembered next time I run across “neither hole” or “rapid dog” in someone else’s work.  HOWEVER…if two or more such malapropisms pop up in one book, then it’s not spell check’s fault, is it?

I recently proofed an ms in which the author kept using “smarted” as a verb meaning to crack sarcastically—mouthed off, whatever.  I kept trying to explain that “to smart” means to cause or to feel a sharp pain.  I’ve no knowledge of smart, as a verb, meaning to crack wise.  Don’t think the author believed me.

Oh - and “effect” and “affect”, which are misused frequently across all genres.

close47 - actually, I am close to 47, and it smarts.

* or “shaft” or “manroot” or “sabre” or “love-cleaver”

“love-cleaver”?????  Surely not. Please. Ouch. Many ouches.  Hmmm, all those “love-cleavers” running around, a girl WOULD need a sturdy chastity belt now, wouldn’t she?

Wait wait wait…. Did someone refer to man junk in a romance novel as a nubbin?  REALLY????? REALLY REALLY?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!

*dies laughing*

*resurrects self*

Wait… was this nubbin-y fellow the villain?  Cause I totally could see so many small dick jokes fostered upon the evil doer.

“love-cleaver”?????  Surely not. Please. Ouch. Many ouches.  Hmmm, all those “love-cleavers” running around, a girl WOULD need a sturdy chastity belt now, wouldn’t she?

HAHAHA—it’s better than “salami”.

I’ve run across “manroot” in a handful of medievals.  All I could think of was the turnip shaped like a “thingy” in Blackadder.

There are two separate issues here.  The one that Sarah raised is a matter of imperfect knowledge and understanding of language, something that is a serious flaw in a professional writer.  Confusion between totally different words like lathe and lave, which are not even homophones, or effect and affect, betrays a degree of incompetence in either the writer or the editor, or both.  We all make mistakes, and one or two mistakes like that may, perhaps, be forgiven, but they really should not appear at all in published works that have been edited and proofread.  Someone should have picked up on them and corrected them before they made it into print.

The other issue is far more complex:  the differences between major English dialects, and the continual evolution of language can both lead to usages that appear incorrect or jarring to some readers, though they not, in fact, wrong.  My example of careen was only one of many where I have thought that an author had made an ridiculous error, only to discover that the usage was acceptable in AE.  Spelling, vocabulary, definitions, punctuation and syntax all differ in some respects between AE and BE and its relatives.  Even when there are no obvious confusions of meaning, this can lead to the style of a writer being perceived very differently by readers.

Tigress: your point is well taken, but sometimes things that should happen in the chain of custody prior to publication do not.  I still remember seeing “penile colony” in a BDB book - I know JR Ward knows the diff b/t penile and penal, and I’m sure the Signet copy eds and proofreaders do as well.  Unfortunately, no software can substitute for human readers, and human readers are human, which means they occasionally f** up.

doing29 - i’m doing 29 things in addition to this, because the Diva came home from Granma’s tonight and deprogramming takes a while.

Funny you should mention lathes…

My aunt runs sex education classes for teenagers.  She had a wooden educational aid supplied by Mates to help demonstrate how to use a condom, but they only included one in the kit.  Wanting a few more to share around the class, she asked my dad, who’s a woodturner, if he could copy the original.

This was the (NSFW) result.

AgTigress: I’d say three issues, because I think at least a few of the malapropisms noted above arise from imperfect copyediting on the publisher’s end.  (The “empathic/emphatic” example noted above comes to mind.)  That gets us into the whole economics-of-modern-publishing can of worms, which is a different kind of problem entirely, but I think it’s a contributing element.

Ms Manna, you have proven that a man can lathe wood and the result is not a nubbin.

Wanting a few more to share around the class, she asked my dad, who’s a woodturner, if he could copy the original.

@Ms Manna: Your dad should consider opening an etsy store because there’s a market for those. For realz—-wooden adult toys not only sell, they’re expensive.

I’ve got to show those to my husband - look honey, a new project…

Oh - and “effect” and “affect”, which are misused frequently across all genres.

At one point in my life, I knew that “effect” is a noun and “affect” is a verb.  And then I discovered that in psychology, “affect” is a noun.  I further I discovered that “effect” can be used as a verb, as in “to effect change”.

This morning, I was trying to write the word “write”.  And I had to erase “wright”, “right” AND “rite” before the caffeine kicked in and I got it, erm, correct.  Oh, what a humbling day.

kinseyholley: For what it’s worth, I have hear the phrasal verb “to smart off” used as a colloquial synomyn for “to speak sarcastically” or “to crack wise.” I believe it’s related to the descriptive term “smart-mouthed.” Maybe that’s what the author you whose work you were proofing was thinking of/misusing? I don’t think the usage would work as a dialogue attribution, actually; the only way I’ve never heard “to smart off” used is in the third person, as in (parent about child): “And then she smarted off, and I sent her to her room.” It also sounds a bit juvenile to me, too, now that I think of it—can’t imagine describing a mature adult as “smarting off,” unless I were being just slightly insulting or condescending.

Maybe it’s a regional idiom, possibly midwestern-urban USA?

that’s an interesting idea Mary - yes, it was a dialog tag, as in “I don’t think so buddy,” she smarted”—but maybe it is a regional thing.

I see these two frequently in Romances—

A flout/flaunt confusion.  I’m almost fond if this one.  There’s a sort of ‘here it comes again’ moment.

The odd inability to conjugate the verb,  ‘to tread,’ (almost always followed by ‘the boards’ when it is wrong.)

the one that really drives me nuts is craven, and I’ve seen it a lot in contests I’ve judged.  I think some paranormal writers think it sounds paranormal-ish (maybe because of raven? Old Ed Poe?) and/or historical writers think it sounds regal or something, but it means contemptible coward. 

So Lord Craven should NOT be the hero.  Just . . . no.  Unless you plan to lathe him, in which case he’ll probably cry.

Actually, I have to ask about the medieval clitoris/nub issue, too. Since my old time fella is obviously not going to call it a clitoris, is nub an acceptable substitute? What word would you, the readers, find both sexy and authentic? HE NEEDS TO KNOW. ELSE HOW IS HE TO GIVE THE LADY A HANDJOB? Sob.

does97—well, yes, on average Sagramore DOES try to do 97 or so a week. >_>

As for nub/nubbin…I present a list of alternatives…

Erm…

Only one I can think of is ‘pink pearl’, with any other p-words you want in there.

I suppose you could hit up some kind of online thesaurus for slang and euphemisms, but I think that might be cheating…

Oh God… Is she a beaver? Is she gnawing on him until she has a match for the dining room table leg that broke off?

:::shudders:::

And my family has threatened to disown me if I shout at the tv screen one more time, “Numbnuts!  Grammarless idiots!  It’s ‘More Movie. Fewer Commercials’ not ‘Less Commercials’!”

This is the not even the first season that TBS has given us that particular horror on screen and I’m ready to swear off tv movies completely.

I don’t know if this is a British Commonwealth vs US English problem, either, but I had to stop reading Jude Devereaux when she had a book that was full of people wearing broaches.

Yes, it sounds like broach, but it’s brooch.

Gwynnyd, might as well give up, it’s a ubiquitous mistake.  I grumble about it at the grocery store.  Then again, I’m driven to distraction by the flagrant misuse of apostrophes.  “Get your ticket’s here!”  and “The dog bit it’s own leg off” and such.  A town in England recently decided not to use apostrophes at all in any municipal signs henceforth, because no one was certain of correct usage.

Barbarians.

Actually, I have to ask about the medieval clitoris/nub issue, too. Since my old time fella is obviously not going to call it a clitoris, is nub an acceptable substitute? What word would you, the readers, find both sexy and authentic? HE NEEDS TO KNOW. ELSE HOW IS HE TO GIVE THE LADY A HANDJOB? Sob.

Well, strictly speaking he doesn’t need to know what to call it. He only needs to know were it is and what to do with it and that doesn’t require a name.

Unfortunately that doesn’t help you describe the action and I have nothing helpful to offer there. Sorry.

Thank you SB Sarah and fellow Bitches for a great Saturday laugh!

I had to stop reading Jude Devereaux when she had a book that was full of people wearing broaches.
Yes, it sounds like broach, but it’s brooch.

Suze, I hate to tell you this, but I’m pretty sure that broach used to be an acceptable alternative spelling of brooch.  I can’t cite sources, but I am absolutely certain that I have seen it in respectable published non-fiction of the 19th century. 
It should not be used today, of course, because it is, at best, archaic, but using an outmoded spelling is not as culpable as using completely the wrong word!
;-)

My guess about what to call the clitoris in the Middle Ages (or even in the early 20th century, come to that) is that there was no word for it, because one simply did not speak of such things (assuming one was even aware of its existence in the first place). 
It is not so long ago since many ordinary people who enjoyed perfectly satisfactory sexual relations actually had no words for many of the things they had and did, so they did not, and could not, talk about them.  As someone said above, you certainly do not have to know the word for something in order to be able to do it!  Only the better educated knew the formal words for the parts of the genitalia, and the only other words were vulgar ones that many well-brought-up persons of both sexes simply could not bring themselves to utter.  Words like cock and cunt were familiar, but many adults found them powerful anti-aphrodisiacs, a sure way of ruining the mood rather than promoting it, and would certainly not have used them.  Even today, many women, especially, have great difficulty communicating with medical professionals, because they do not know words like vulva and vagina, and cannot bring themselves to say the vulgar words, especially to a doctor.  They fall back on weak euphemisms (‘front passage’) or on the childish—a common childish BE expression for the vagina is ‘front bottom’.
The answer that was found by couples who wanted to talk about their sexual activities was usually to create their own private vocabulary, for example by giving personal names to their genitals and sometimes by inventing completely new words.
The readiness to talk openly about sexual matters is generally post-1960s.  An author can describe sexual activities in whatever vocabulary seems good to her, but when it comes to dialogue, she must consider whether her characters would actually have used words at all.  In many cases, the answer will have been ‘no’.

Just to add to what I said above, as far as I am aware, there is no traditional vulgar word for the clitoris:  it has been completely ignored.  I could write a lot more about this, and about the way in which specialists in sexual medicine in the late Victorian period perceived that part of the female body, but I’ll spare you all.

there is no traditional vulgar word for the clitoris:  it has been completely ignored.

I discovered the term “tickler” which is a translation of a German term used in the 18c. Good enough for me. There are many archaic slang words for female genitalia (usually nasty, many baffling, and you have the idea that few men had the nerve to get down there and have a good look). So this suggests to me that women knew about the clitoris but didn’t bother to name something so familiar and user-friendly; yet if men had named it that would mean they’d have to acknowledge its existence.

I have a personal vendetta against the term “pebbled nub” which is wrong in oh so many ways.

Forgot to add: My particular horror is junction of her thighs, particularly when some lucky guy is laving it. Presumably before his big Choo Choo of Love comes steaming in.

does67. How did you find out?

But I thought I’d let you lot know that clit (gosh, I find it harder to type than cunt) is not universally approved.

Cunt is a good solid word, from Old English (quente). 
Pussy is just too, well…..wussy!

there is no traditional vulgar word for the clitoris:  it has been completely ignored.

Like the organ itself!

Thank you for this post. It’s one of my pet peeves.

I point out the lathed/laved error to an author once. She blamed it on her voice recognition software.

Cunt is a good solid word, from Old English (quente).

Its etymology is respectable enough, but it is not a euphonious word (unlike the variant queynt), nor is it easy for anyone of my generation to set aside the vast weight of negative associations that it carries.  I am a lot more comfortable with quim or with cunny:  these terms are not habitually hurled as insults by drunken brawlers.
Puss/pussy is an interesting one; I don’t find it ‘wussy’.  It was a colloquial term for a hare or rabbit, a coney, which, of course, is pronounced cunny.
Again, we see how the perception of vocabulary varies according to dialect and generation, with the different associations involved. Some people—and that means, some readers—will respond quite as negatively to the old, blunt sex words as younger people do to the terms of racial abuse that are now outlawed.

I’ll admit it, I love power tools and watching shows about remodeling and woodworking. I’ve even made a few things. So I’m pretty familiar with the term lathe. I’ve seen it used a few times and it just jumps out at me. It makes me laugh because I’m sure the author was going for laved and just got it so wrong, but annoys me for the same reason.

I point out the lathed/laved error to an author once. She blamed it on her voice recognition software.

LOL!  Whom or what did she blame for failing to spot it when proof-reading?  :-)

As heardwords there is certainly a danger of confusion, and in some dialects (including Cockney and SE England ‘Estuary English’) , lathe might actually be pronounced lave —though not vice versa.  This sound-change affects both phonemes that are spelt th:  ‘thanks’ is frequently pronounced ‘fanks’ and ‘mother’, ‘muvver’ in these regional/social dialects.  But the process of writing, reading and checking should override the problems that can arise from homophones or near-homophones.  Avoiding pitfalls of this kind should be part of the craft of writing.

Sorry for typo!  Why can’t we EDIT any more?

I have got to stop reading this when my family is around; I *cannot* explain all the snorts and giggles to my kids…  : )

Adding to the nipples discussion, I recently read something that called them her “sentient flesh” which I found slightly creepy.

And lastly, my favorite language pet peeve is the word “literally” which is so rarely used correctly. If her pants are “literally” on fire, he should get a fire extinguisher, not a hard-on. Though I guess in both cases, he’d want to get the pants off of her…

I find myself very often irritated by misused/misspelled idioms and colloquialisms, homonym errors and such, BUT I can’t bring myself to blame the author entirely.

This is an editor/copyeditor/proofreader’s job. What does it say about the education of the people who are supposed to be professionals at the language of English when so many books get by with these? They’re supposed to know this stuff and, hopefully, educate the author so it won’t happen again.

Please, no more “pebbled nub.”  Serious ICK factor.  It brings to mind a pebble with bumps all over it.  Which makes me think that the “nub” is “pebbled” due to an STD.  EW!

“I discovered the term “tickler” which is a translation of a German term used in the 18c.”

The term “tickler” was still in use in sex-ed in the 80s when I went to school. Nobody used the latin term then.

My pet peeve is wrong use of contractions, their-they’re (and there!) and your-you’re. Argh. And I’m not even a native speaker - is this hypocritical? My English teacher is surely spinning in her grave (not mounted on a lathe, I hope).

OK. Prehensile nipples? Lost of mental images of swinging though the trees by the nipples and going though my head.
I think I am out of the look of the lingo. I can’t even figure out what word the author was wanting!

One error I’ve noticed more and more in recent years is the use of “alright” for “all right”, especially in British English.  The Kids Are Alright is one obvious example, though I’ve run across many, many uses in mainstream fiction as well.
I have a feeling that this one gets by a lot of editors who just don’t realize it’s incorrect, and in all fairness, it seems to have become acceptable through continued use, though I can recall my elementary school teachers (1970’s vintage) harping on how egregious it was.

BUT I can’t bring myself to blame the author entirely.
This is an editor/copyeditor/proofreader’s job.

Well, yes and no.  Certainly it is perfectly true that any published text has been through many hands, and that not all the infelicities or errors should therefore be attributed to the author.  At the same time, a professional writer should be able to submit a manuscript which is essentially clean, complete and correct.  Naturally nobody can guarantee that there will not be a single error, but the text should not be a mess that requires the kind of attention appropriate for an essay by a scatterbrained teenager.

The editors, copy-editors and proof-readers (who include the author, after all) are supposed to pick up on a variety of problems, including any discrepancy between the author’s text and the publisher’s house-style.  When I write the word analyse, because I always use the most usual and familiar BE spelling, but my publisher’s house-style happens to favour analyze, my copy-editor changes it, no doubt using a global ‘find and replace’.  When I use more commas than my editor can bear, he or she changes some of them to brackets or em-dashes (and I change some of them back again :-)  )  But I hope that nothing I have written is technically, grammatically incorrect:  the changes that are made, some of which I accept meekly, have to do with points of style, not correctness.  There may occasionally be situations where an actual mistake has been made, and the editor is the one who saves one from looking a fool.  Editors who take a correct text and insert errors into it come into a different category altogether.

I have written for American publishers when my British spelling and punctuation have been left untouched, and others (usually journals) where the editor has changed grey to gray , colour to color and inserted the ‘Oxford’ comma into lists:  but none of these things has to do with an imperfect grasp of the standard written English of one’s own region.  It is simply about imposing an integrated house-style.

One error I’ve noticed more and more in recent years is the use of “alright” for “all right”, especially in British English.

Elizabeth —it is encroaching, and the descriptivists will accept it soon, on the analogy of already , altogether and so on.  I know that all ready and all together don’t mean the same things as those contracted words, but there is a lot of confusion, and this kind of contraction seems to have a long history in English.

I would never use ‘alright’, but then I am a grumpy old woman.  AE usages tend to seep into BE when we aren’t watching, and I suppose we should welcome trends that keep global English together a bit, so we can understand each other up to a point.
:-)

The editors, copy-editors and proof-readers (who include the author, after all) are supposed to pick up on a variety of problems,

Right. So all the people involved don’t know the difference between lathe and lave?

You know, we all have gaps in the education of our own language.  For instance, I didn’t know until the other day that it was “like a trouper,” and not “like a trooper.”

I don’t have a difficulty with one out of four people (author, editor, copyeditor/proofreader) not knowing lathe v lave. I have a real problem with ALL FOUR people not knowing.

As for house style, that’s another matter entirely.  I know one house’s style is “alright” over “all right” and a period/comma outside quote marks (which is not standard American grammar).  I would CRINGE to apply that style.  When I see that in that house’s books (even though I KNOW it’s their house style), I count it as an error in my head.

There are autocorrects for such things as British/American spellings, so that’s not a difficult problem to remedy. 

Editors who take a correct text and insert errors into it come into a different category altogether.

I agree with you.  I’ve come across a few of these (with regard to friends who are reading galleys) and I shudder.

There are autocorrects for such things as British/American spellings, so that’s not a difficult problem to remedy.

You’d be surprised!  I have everything possible on the computer set on ‘English, UK’, but it still takes a while to convince Word that I really, really do want to spell jewellery like that, not jewelry!  The spelling I want has to have been inserted into my personal thesaurus, even though it is the standard BE spelling.  ‘Jewelry’ is also acceptable in BE, so Word ignores the standard BE spelling in favour of the standard AE, even when it, and the whole computer, is set on UK English.

Yes, we do all have gaps in our own knowledge, however knowledgeable and experienced we are, and this is where good editors (and other readers) can be a boon and a blessing.  But when author, general editor, copy-editor, sundry readers and proof-readers all fail to pick up on a very obvious error, then one can only assume that people are not paying much attention.  Maybe they are not actually reading the text with close attention?

On a non-grammatical error, did I ever mention the 1980s category romance where the author described new-born kittens as naked and hairless, like baby mice?  That didn’t ‘alf take me aback, I can tell you!  Why introduce baby kittens into the story if you don’t know anything about them?  And would one not think that other pre-publication readers would have noticed?  Nope! 

;-)

There are autocorrects for such things as British/American spellings, so that’s not a difficult problem to remedy.

You’d be surprised!

And take pity on us poor Canadians, whose correct English seems to be an inconsistent mix of the two, with some Frenglish thrown in.  If I set my computer for BE, I get -ise and other weirdness, which I don’t like, and if I set it for AE, it takes away all my honour, colour, and neighbours.  So irritating.

I use a program (which is not a programme) at work that requires us to use the American date format of mm/dd/yyyy, because it gets all confused and frozen up by the correct yyyy/mm/dd (yes, dammit, year-month-day is CORRECT!  Everybody else is wrong!)

And I have to say that, long before I gave up on the Anita Blake series as unreadable, it used to drive me crazy when she kept saying “Alright.”  That’s not all right with me.

Ah, we all know that Canadians are a law unto themselves!
:-D

One error I’ve noticed more and more in recent years is the use of “alright” for “all right”, especially in British English.

Elizabeth —it is encroaching, and the descriptivists will accept it soon, on the analogy of already , altogether and so on.  I know that all ready and all together don’t mean the same things as those contracted words,

.

Yes, that is another thing that makes me crazy.  If the people who insisted on using “alright” would agree on using it consistently to add meaning to the written word, I might be more ready to accept it as proper usage.

No one thinks that “they were already to go” or “he gathered the toys altogether” is correct usage, do they?  Why would anyone expect me to accept “alright” as meaning either satisfactory or correct? Must I use context to distinguish them?  Maybe if they standardized alright as an adverb meaning “satisfactory and all right as the collective noun meaning “correct” even the old sticklers like me could go for it.

Next up - alwrong, alclear, alstar…

I use a program (which is not a programme) at work that requires us to use the American date format of mm/dd/yyyy, because it gets all confused and frozen up by the correct yyyy/mm/dd (yes, dammit, year-month-day is CORRECT!  Everybody else is wrong!)

No it is dd/mm/yyyy Everyone else is wrong!!

I had a reader from Poland email to ask me where I was from (publishing fiction online).  She said, “Your spelling is British, but your usage is American.  Where exactly do you live?”

I thought it was a masterly summation of Canadian English, actually!

I lathe my ex- once.

I would also recommend against describing the heroine as having a “taught abdomen,” unless you’re willing to describe the curriculum.

Is it possible that a lot of the copy-editing functions have been assigned to spell-check modules by publishers as a way of reducing costs by reducing actual human staff?

Is it possible that a lot of the copy-editing functions have been assigned to spell-check modules by publishers as a way of reducing costs by reducing actual human staff?

Your cynicism dismays me.  No, wait, that’s not it.  The extreme likelihood of your being right on the mark about that dismays me.

Just to put another perspective out there, way back in the mid-90’s, I was reading a training journal (for industry training departments) article that said, essentially, we now have generations of tv-watchers teaching other generations of tv-watchers to read and write.  The only way to learn to properly string words together is to read them properly strung together.  If you grow up on tv and poorly-written/edited stuff, you have no way of knowing correct spelling, grammar, usage, and elegant flow of words.

I would add that ppl hu txt & cnt t8k tm 2 spl will also have big problems with correct word selection.  (Not being much of a texter, I have no idea if that’s correct text-speak.)

Hey, in American Gods a woman actually eats a man with her vagina.  Ih the first chapter.  Good times.
Actually, that’s a great book, and I highly recommend it.  Not whatcha might call a romance…

Hey, in American Gods a woman actually eats a man with her vagina.  In the first chapter.  Good times.
Actually, that’s a great book, and I highly recommend it.  Not whatcha might call a romance.

Hey, in American Gods a woman actually eats a man with her vagina.

This crops up in various forms in many cultures and times— the vagina dentata.

Hey, in American Gods a woman actually eats a man with her vagina.  In the first chapter.  Good times.
Actually, that’s a great book, and I highly recommend it.  Not whatcha might call a romance.

American Gods is possibly my favorite book of all time.  It’s not to everyone’s taste, and people seem either to love or hate it—no middle ground.  It doesn’t fit the traditional urban fantasy mold—for one thing it’s very slow-moving, and for another the hero is extremely passive up until the very end of the story.  If you can make it through, it’s a rewarding journey.
To return to the subject of grammatically unaware copy-editors, I recall reading on another website some time ago that many publishing companies out-source their copy editing to countries such as India to save on cost; the downside, of course, is that the manuscripts are being proofread by people who learned English as a second language and may be unfamiliar with all the nuances of the language.  Thoughts?

..many publishing companies out-source their copy editing to countries such as India to save on cost; the downside, of course, is that the manuscripts are being proofread by people who learned English as a second language and may be unfamiliar with all the nuances of the language.  Thoughts?

While I have reservations about the tendency to out-source services abroad in order to save money, the language issue is not quite what one might expect in India.  On the whole, I think I might be slightly more confident about a reasonably well-educated Indian proof-reading a book than many a young Brit. 
Many middle-class Indians learn English and their other language virtually simultaneously, because English is not merely taught in schools:  it is widely used in everyday public life as a lingua franca to avert the difficulties posed by scores of regional languages in the country.  Children therefore hear older members of their family using English as a matter of course, so they know it well.  However, English has been present in the sub-continent for so long— three centuries—that it has naturally developed its own dialect characteristics, and Indian English has not only vocabulary differencesm, but also some syntactical peculiarities.  Its historical links are with British English, of course, though that may be changing a bit these days.
I would certainly expect any literate middle-class Indian, let alone one working as an editor, to know the difference between lathe and lave.

At the same time, a professional writer should be able to submit a manuscript which is essentially clean, complete and correct.  Naturally nobody can guarantee that there will not be a single error, but the text should not be a mess that requires the kind of attention appropriate for an essay by a scatterbrained teenager.

I second that in the strongest possible way.  I’ve said a few times that if you make a living from words, you should know how to use them properly.  I get very annoyed with our local newspaper because it often appears that neither the journalists nor the editors realize this.  However, in typing out the one example that comes to mind, I realize that I sound horrifyingly pedantic so I deleted it.

I would like to point out, however, that every time I see “loose” for “lose”, my teeth grind.  How can anyone make that mistake?  They don’t even sound the same!  (It can lead to comedy gold, however, like the comment I read earlier this morning on a different site from a girl who, at the age of 22, decided to “loose her virginity”.)

American Gods is possibly my favorite book of all time.  It’s not to everyone’s taste, and people seem either to love or hate it—no middle ground.

I must be one of the few standing in the middle, then.  My response to my husband’s, “Well, how was it?” was “Eh…it was okay.”

Happens all the time - writers write “could care less” when the phrase is “couldn’t care less”. Drives. me. crazy.

I recently learned that the phrase is actually “if you think that, you’ve got another think coming.” Although, I’ll argue to my grave that “if you think that, you’ve got another thing coming” makes sense as well. If you think thought A is true, when event B occurs, the thing you were expecting to happen based on thought A doesn’t happen, so you had another thing coming. I can live with this.

I would like to point out, however, that every time I see “loose” for “lose”, my teeth grind.  How can anyone make that mistake?  They don’t even sound the same!

Oh man, I see this all the time on professional writers’ blogs and it makes me insane!!

I can forgive it if it’s an occasional oops. I’ve hit keys one too many times and not caught it, but when it’s ALL THE TIME, I get highly annoyed.

most hilarious thing i’ve read this month!
@Lynn M.  That phrase drives me nuts (“if you think that, you’ve got another think coming”). I know that’s the correct version (you’ve got another think coming= think again), but it just doesn’t flow well for me because, to me, ‘think’ is a verb, never a noun.

Amen, sisters!

Wow. I do enjoy a good visual example, but that one is CLASSIC. Thanks SBSarah.

ACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please take care of the nubbin. I always feel like there’s an ear of corn between my legs. ~sigh~

(you’ve got another think coming= think again), but it just doesn’t flow well for me because, to me, ‘think’ is a verb, never a noun.

Dr Seuss, anyone?  “Oh, the thinks you can think”?

Right. So all the people involved don’t know the difference between lathe and lave?

More likely, it goes like this:

Author either doesn’t know the difference, or makes a spell-checker mistake, or her mind is going faster than her fingers on her keyboard.

Author/editors end up missing it because it’s natural for people to read what their mind expects to see on the page rather than what’s actually there. Yes, the job of an editor is to see past that, and most of them are very good at it, but they aren’t machines—-things will slip past them now and then.

So, yeah, ouch, and not a good mistake to make! But as long as it’s one error in a book and not one of a bunch, I’d at least try to give the author the benefit of the doubt. :) When they make that substitution repeatedly, however, all bets are off!

“come78”—-dang, that’s a lot of times!

Heather:  Exactly.

Glenn Kelman, chief executive and president of Redfin, said that it will not open offices across the Island to launch its services. He said one office in either Melville or Huntington would be enough. The online brokerage would just develop and introduce better features, in addition to its foreclosed home search .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

To Lathe - hum - I wouldn’t mind doing that to my cheating ex-husband, but it would never do for the magnificent men I write into my books.  -  Oh, and I have a lathe and have turned more than one piece of wood.  I never thought of it in terms of a man before.  I don’t think you could turn a piece of wood into the interesting bits without a lot of hand work, but that is another story.

Hear, hear!

That’s as in “listen”, not “this place”. Of course, if you’re playing a ball game or something, or are trying try attract SB Sarah’s attention on a book giveaway thread, then using “Here! Here!” is fine.

Just sayin’.

@Mary and kinseyholley: I grew up in the Midwest and have lived on the E. Coast (US) for 14 years, and I have never heard “smarted” used outside of referencing pain. If “smarted” is a regional vernacular, it’s new, or not from the mid west/east coast.

I’ve no knowledge of smart, as a verb, meaning to crack wise.

I have. I’m smack in the middle of the heartland and I hear it all the time and have for years and years.

Moving along . . .

Just today I saw “visa-vi” for “vis-à-vis.”

I live smack dab in the heart of the midwest and I hear “smart off” all the time. Use it all the time, too.

On a related note, I saw “vis-à-vis” spelled “visa-vi” on an author blog, supposedly quoting an agent.

I don’t think I’ve ever come across that one before.  My particular pet peeve, which I see a lot thanks to my unfortunate slashfic addiction is the use of “withered” for “writhed”.  If he’s withering, someone’s doing something wrong!

Okay, here’s one I saw again today.  I’ve come across it a lot lately, and I’m starting to wonder if there’s a regional variation going on.

Using the word “ancestors” when the author clearly means “descendants”.  In my universe, ancestors are the people you come from, and are all dead by now.  They’re your great-grandparents’ great-grandparents.

So when you have a character talking about how your ancestors will one day appreciate your actions, ur doin’ it wrong.  Your ancestors are dead.  They will never care about or be affected by what you do.  Your descendants, on the other hand, may well curse or bless you for introducing alien chromosomes into the family genome.

This is a far cry from “She wedged his erection between two drill points, spun it at over 2200 rpm and applied a sharp edge to the outside to carve away the unwanted wood.”

LOL

I used to work in a woodshop (well, I was their accountant) and I saw a lathe in action…OUCHEE.

Dialects, dialects!  I’m southern & I to this very day believe it is a conspiracy to try to make us believe that P-I-N and P-E-N are pronounced differently.  And how about tumped.  It is an American regionalism I’ve used all my life until my midwestern husband didn’t know what I meant…you know, be careful or you’ll tump that over.  Though it does look funny written out.  I’ve never seen it written, only spoken.  It means a combination of dump out and tip over.  It IMPLIES accidently tipping something over until the content tumble out.  Routinely yelled at us kids by our mother and grandmother.

And the discussion of cunt, clit, whatever.  A lot of this is connotation, rather than dennotation.  When cunt is used as a swear word to denograte a woman its hard to be turned on when the hero calls uses it in sex talk.  Words in use take on a load of connotation, rather than their meaning.  BE, AE,CE, IE—all diferent languages.  Hey what does a biscuit mean to you guys—yummy baking powder buttery, steamy, oozing butter and jam or covered in yummy cream gravy, or a hard baked sweet cracker.  What else is this OED but a way to understand Shakespeare’s bawdy puns?  Til i studied him in college, I never knew so many common words and phrase were “talking dirty” 

Fun post, now let’s have a campaign to have gay mean happy and carefree.  Love that word which has so unfairly been coopted for another “meaning”.

So I’m coming into this really late. . . sorry. But I had to interject: many, perhaps all, ancient people had a pretty good understanding of female sexual anatomy. The word “clitoris” was actually coined by an Italian anatomist in the 1500s who was terribly proud that he had “discovered” something so remarkably useful for seducing women. Those Renaissance Italians and their discoveries! But I know it was also detailed in the Kama Sutra and other ancient sexual writings; the Greeks certainly knew, and the Egyptians. SMART medieval men would have made it their business to find out. Either that, or risk the medieval lathe. Anyway, here’s a link. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/clitoris

I find it useful, when writing historical sex scenes, to search my modern term + “archaic term” or “archaic dictionary” or something similar. I often find a cornucopia of wonderful words to use that are not at all hackneyed. Or I pick up Fanny Hill (freely available on Gutenberg.org) and re-read it—one of the dirtiest books ever written without a single bad word, if I remember right.

@mingqi: “@Lynn M.  That phrase drives me nuts”

And that phrase always reminds me of this:

Sailor: Cap’n, you have a steering wheel stuck in your pants.

Pirate Captain: Yarr, it’s drivin’ me nuts!