Archive for the ‘Metaphors’ Category

One more SquirtJet item

November 30, 2016

(In the seminal-ejaculation zone, so not to everyone’s taste.)

It started with a report on ADS-L from Wilson Gray thst Urban Dictionary had an entry for spray and pray conveying (of males) ‘engage in unprotected sex’. I haven’t found that entry, but this one’s close:

spray and pray: have sex with a lady w/ no protection and pray for no children. OMG i just fucked that bitch and left a load. I pray there are no little hommies to become of this. by BamMaster April 14, 2003

The expression has the ejaculatory V spray, a metaphorical usage ultimately grounded in (a) a V of liquid flow (intrans. The water sprayed onto the deck. trans. We sprayed the water onto the deck.), extended to (b) a V denoting a flow of bullets from a submachine gun, assault rifle, or the like; (c) a V denoting specifically a flow of urine from a penis; (d) a V denoting specifically a flow of semen from a penis; (e) a V denoting the dissemination (spread or distribution) of information from some source.

To the Vs in (a)-(d) there correspond product or result Ns spray; sexual spray is then a SquirtJet item like spurt, shower, squirt, jet, spew in a posting of mine yesterday.

Meanwhile, the whole expression spray and pray refers to indiscriminate or unconstrained spraying (in one of the senses (b)-(e)) accompanied by a merely hopeful or wishful attitude towards the consequences or results of the spraying.

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What a hoot!

August 24, 2015

This morning’s Mother Goose and Grimm turns on a simple, silly ambiguity, but then the story gets more complicated:

(#1)

First pass: hooters (1) ‘creatures that hoot, i.e., owls’ (straightforward derivational morphology, but specialized semantically) vs. Hooters, the restaurant chain fixated on hooters (2) N. Amer. vulgar slang for ‘a woman’s breasts’ (NOAD2).

Then there’s another sense, on which a Bizarro cartoon (posted here as #3 on 5/2/14) turns: hooters (3) informal ‘noses, esp. big noses’ vs. Hooters.

And at least one other important sense: hooter (4) esp. Brit. ‘an automobile horn’ —  that is, a thing that hoots (more straightforward derivational morphology).

But what about senses (3) and (2)?

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