DICTIONARY OF EUPHEMISMS AND DYSPHEMISMS IN ENGLISH EROTICA…[精品].doc

DICTIONARY OF EUPHEMISMS AND DYSPHEMISMS IN ENGLISH EROTICA WITH SPANISH EQUIVALENTS Francisco Sánchez Benedito University of Málaga INTRODUCTION The language referring to the sexual organs or functions has traditionally had, at least in our western culture, the consideration of taboo. Whether owing to an understandable modesty, or a certain guilty conscience after experiencing pleasure, or for any other reason which escapes us, the fact remains that man has always been reluctant to speak or write about the subject of sex using clear, straightforward terms. It would seem he is keen to maintain a restricted area of forbidden language, a private redoubt nobody can accede to without incurring the disapproval of ‘decent’ men and women. This explains the avoidance at all costs of terms such as ‘fuck’, ‘prick’ or ‘cunt’, for example, and the incessant quest for euphemisms to hide this ‘crude’ reality. Curiously enough, many of these euphemisms soon acquire themselves a taboo character, and must be replaced by new ones. It is hard to understand that terms which are today clearly ‘obscene’ like ‘cock’ or ‘pussy’ originated as euphemisms for the male and female genitals, respectively. The present Dictionary of Euphemisms and Dysphemisms in English Erotica with Spanish Equivalents is based on my previous A Semi-bilingual Dictionary of Euphemisms and Dysphemisms in English Erotica, and its Supplement, published by Editorial Comares, Granada in 1998 and 2004, resp., revised, updated and considerably enlarged. I have gathered an ample number of terms and expressions (around 13.000), used in English in this field throughout the times. I must warn my readers, however, that I never intended my selection to be exhaustive. The amount of sex slang is practically unlimited, as a browse through the numerous websites in the Internet dedicated to this subject will show; my priority objective has been to gather a corpus sufficiently wide and varied which can be the foundatio