Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 June 11

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June 11

Breatharians and always-awake-ians?

A breatharian is someone who never eats. What do you call someone who never sleeps? 24.130.24.40 (talk) 06:10, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Thái Ngọc hasn't slept for well over 40 years. At the 33-year point, in October 2006, he reported that he was beginning to feel "like a plant without water" due to the lack of sleep. I'd have thought he's gone well past insomnia and clear into asomnia, but that term is hardly ever used. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:27, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Those with Fatal familial insomnia are usually dead within two years. How do we know that guy has gotten by for 40 years without any kind of sleep? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:13, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

According to the OED insomniac, insomnious, and insomnolent can all be used to describe someone who suffers from insomnia. I don't think there is any parallel with breatharians.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:47, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

The word "breatharians" does not imply someone who never eats. It is someone who claims she could survive just by breathing. Reality has proven them wrong, obviously. --Abaget (talk) 04:51, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Why 'she'? Most of the breatharians quoted in the article are men. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 10:38, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Calotriton

Hello. Any ideas on what the Calo- part means in the genus name Calotriton? Thanks! Leptictidium (mt) 07:59, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Calo- is a combining form of the Greek καλός meaning beautiful. I don't know whether that's what it means in this context, but it seems a safe bet.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:24, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Beautiful ? Maybe to each other. StuRat (talk) 11:58, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

You can read the article that introduced the name here: [1]. Dr. J. E. Gray, F.R.S., V.P.Z.S., Pres. Ent. Soc., etc. does not explain what he intended the name to mean, but wikt:καλός can mean beautiful, good, right. --Amble (talk) 16:11, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Slang for fellation

Why is fellation called a "blowjob", when the one giving it is sucking rather than blowing? 2A00:801:210:73BD:ED91:E3BA:1A89:2D0F (talk) 17:33, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Fellatio is a blowjob. Fellation is blowing. It's not about what the worker's doing, it's about what the job does. Makes one blow his load. InedibleHulk (talk) 18:22, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Our article explains that "fellātus, which in Latin is the past participle of the verb fellāre, meaning to suck." Maybe the Romans were just more literal minded. I'm a little surprised the etymology of "blow job" only goes back to 1961. This [2] (more info on source here [3]) puts "blow job" at 1948, but I guess we'd have to buy the guy's dictionary to see the first usage referred to. Before that, we had to make due with "vice-versa" "fifty-fifty" and "gobbledegoo" as slang for fellatio. I'll probably look at OED later to see what they say. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:08, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

For the record, OED has the same date of first print usage "1961 A. Hecht in Hudson Rev. XIV. 371 59 And you can get a blow-job Where other men have pissed.", so either Green's dictionary of slang's date of 1948 is either based on sources OED doesn't have, or maybe he used interviews and other methods. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:12, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

For the further record, Gershon Legman's Bawdy Limericks, cites a use of "blow" meaning "fellate" from 1946 (Limerick #400). It apparently wasn't a "job" back then. Of course, it's much trickier to rhyme Eskimo with blowjob. Matt Deres (talk) 13:04, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

This is a great opportunity to link compositional semantics (there are tons once you get an eye for it :) The point is, not even all formal words have meanings that can be deciphered from their parts, and for slang all bets are off. There are several old jokes on this theme "Why do you park on a driveway but drive on a parkway? (at least in the USA)" - the not-that-funny-but-correct answer is that natural language doesn't obey compositional semantics.

We do have Category:Sexual_slang, and a quick browse will show many terms that just don't make much sense. For example Turkey Slap doesn't seem to have much to do with turkeys. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:57, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

And donkey punch, a term I know only because I watched the movie. Honest! ―Mandruss ☎ 19:03, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

My guess: the object of attention is compared to a wind instrument. —Tamfang (talk) 09:32, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

A skin flute, perhaps. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:11, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Remember "... a self-confessed player of the pink oboe ..."? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:51, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

No, but I remember hearing about Giles Brindley showing off his new take on the "logical bassoon". That probably blew a great scientific mind or two. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:18, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Actually, "blow job" is pretty much a transparent collocation, deriving from "blow," to fellate (a person). I can anticipate that your next question is going to be, Why does "blow" mean "fellate" when the action tends to be sucking and licking rather than blowing? I don't know. However, it is probably significant that it is the person, not the genitals, that are blown. We can speculate that it "blows the mind" of the recipient (which actually is a little too late to be plausible) or, as InedibleHulk says, makes him "blow" his load, but those are just guesses. John M Baker (talk) 16:58, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

• Its rather obvious this is prostitute slang, see handjob. μηδείς (talk) 00:39, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Probably. Many people suck/blow/chomp, but relatively few make jobs of it.

Oddly enough, even in hooker-rich Montreal, "screwjob" doesn't mean what it should. I can't remember anywhere where "real sex" has a -job name. Maybe because it doesn't feel so much like thankless work, even though it's all "work". Or maybe "worked shoot" is more appropriate. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:18, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Minor name dilemma

What's the proper way to write "Luis Keppel Sr. and Evelyn (nee Beck)"? "Luis Sr. and Evelyn (nee Beck) Keppel"? Clarityfiend (talk) 20:59, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Evelyn (nee Beck) and Luis Keppel, Sr. ? - with or without the comma and/or the full stop/period, depending on geographical location and personal opinion in recent discussions. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:31, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

I guess that'll have to do. Thanks. Clarityfiend (talk) 13:31, 13 June 2015 (UTC)