======================================================================== 31
Date:         Sun, 14 May 95 12:09:20 EDT
From:         "Karl L. Wuensch" <PSWUENSC@ECUVM1>
Subject:      "fornicate" and arches
To:           lbradley@grits.valdosta.peachnet.edu
 
 
 
     Regarding your note on HUMOR on the derivation of the word "fornicate"
(Latin for "arch") -- I have made great use of this here at East Carolina Univ.
where we have adopted arches as the symbol of the university -- seems to
indicate what the administration loves to do to students and faculty!  You
might enjoy Stephen Gould's "Sex and Size," in his book "The Flamingo's
Smile."  He discusses the remarkable sex life of the slipper limpet,
Crepidula fornicata.  This remarkable creature starts out life as a male.
They form stacks, with the smaller limpets (male) at the top of the stack
and the larger ones (female) at the base of the stack -- this creature is
a protogynous sequential hermaphrodite, changing to female as it grows
larger.  In any case, because the small males at the top of the stack of
limpets must have some reliable way of getting their sperms to the large
females at the bottom of the stack, the species has evolved a penis that is
far longer than the length of the rest of its entire body (it can extend
past the several other males likely to be between one male limpet and the
females below).
 
     When Gould first learned of the scientific name for this limpet he
assumed that "fornicata" referred to the remarkable sex life of the species,
only later to learn that this name was chosen to describe the arched shape
of the shell of the limpet.  He then goes on to describe how the Romans
used arched brickwork in the underground parts of great buildings, that the
poor and the prostitutes frequented such areas, and thus the derivation of
the word "fornicate" from the Latin "fornix" for "arch."
======================================================================== 35
Date: Mon, 15 May 1995 09:19:19 -0400 (EDT)
From: Lee Bradley <lbradley@grits.valdosta.peachnet.edu>
Subject: Re: "fornicate" and arches
To: "Karl L. Wuensch" <PSWUENSC@ECUVM.CIS.ECU.EDU>
 
Thanks for that addition to my hardly adequate knowledge of Latin.  I
live off dictionaries and basic textbooks for such knowledge, and
something concrete like this information helps me get a fix on the Latin
words.
 
I have not heard of the slipper limpet before, but I congratulate him! The
only other limpet I know of is the Don Knotts movie of 20? years ago.
 
I had not thought about arches before, but perhaps your comments also
apply to McDonald's Golden Arches.  "You want service?  F*** you!"
 
----------------------------------------------------------------
        Lee Bradley, Executive Director
        Southern Conference on Language Teaching
        Valdosta State University, Valdosta, GA 31698
        telephone +1-912-333-7358; Fax +1-912-333-7389
        lbradley@grits.valdosta.peachnet.edu
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