Archive for the ‘My life’ Category
August 12, 2026
The gay sex news from 60 years ago. It started with an e-mail exchange with my first male lover (Larry Schourup) about the course of our relationship back then. I’m pleased at having dredged up so much, but it is of course largely imaginative reconstruction, fictobiography, not bald narrative — I post often about the fragility of memory and the undependability of it due to its constant alteration over time — but I think I got a lot of emotional tones right.
I then wondered whether he invited me or whether I had simply advanced on him (something that later in life I rarely did). And got a wonderful reply, which I quote from here with LS’s permission.
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Posted in Effeminacy, Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Language and race, Language and the body, Language of sex, My life | Leave a Comment »
August 11, 2026
It’s happening again. The staff where I live now have mostly taken to addressing me as Mr. Arnold — because to lots of Americans (of whatever origins), Mr. Zwicky seems to be simply unpronounceable, a hurdle too high. This produces a twinge of sociolinguistic distress in me, because of the regrettable history of the American address form Mr. FN [that is, FirstName], as in Blues for Mr. Charlie.
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Posted in Address terms, My life, Names, Race and ethnicity, Sociolinguistics | 3 Comments »
August 10, 2026
(man-on-man sex, riffed on in street language, so not suitable for kids or the sexually modest)
I have tons of news, much of it truly wonderful, some of it just eccentric bits of stuff I’ve come across, but all postponed after an exhausting day yesterday that turned, for me, on six exhausting hours of one thing after another going terribly wrong. Still organizing my thoughts about it all — so now for something completely different, inspired by my playing the 60s-generation music channel on my Xfinity tv. Which got me to thinking about the 60s, which was exactly my 20s, and I seem to have stumbled through a whole multi-ring circus of lives (here an acrobat on a trapeze, there a sword-swallower, over there some clowns) in those ten years. Everything happened at once.
More or less in order, insofar as that’s possible (but starting in 1958):
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Posted in Effeminacy, Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Language and the body, Language of sex, My life, Race and ethnicity, Social class | Leave a Comment »
August 9, 2026
The headline news yesterday (8/8) was about a Jetstar plane nearly colliding with a Qatar Airlines plane at the Sydney airport. But what I heard from my tv was about, omigod, a Death Star plane. Death stalks Sydney.
Well, jet and death are in fact quite similar phonologically and so are easily confused. Meanwhile, the Australian economy airline is fresh news for me, while I’ve been steeped in Star Wars stuff since 1977. So everything tips my perceptions towards death.
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Posted in Mishearings, Movies and tv, My life, News, Phonology, Psycholinguistics | 1 Comment »
August 8, 2026
(all about sex between men, described largely in street language, and utterly inappropriate for kids and the sexually modest)
Two engaging images of faces, both conveying pleasure, during man-on-man sex. What is it that these guys are so satisfied about?
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Posted in Acting, Actors, Facial expression, Gay porn, Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Language and the body, Language of advertising, Language of sex, Movies and tv, My life, Underwear | Leave a Comment »
August 6, 2026
A few days ago I suddenly developed an impressive case of laryngitis — utterly painless, but incredibly annoying — which I attributed to a change in my medications (a huge increase in the dosage of the steroid prednisone). And so it might have been.
Then after breakfast this morning (around 4:30 am) I was visited by the unmistakable intestinal symptoms of cryptosporidiosis, crypto for short — notably uncontrollable watery diarrhea, dammit. Some days earlier, when a widespread US outbreak of the infection was reported, I had put great mounds of possibly infected greens down the garbage disposal, but apparently I had already eaten enough of them that the parasite was just lying in wait, gathering in strength to wreck havoc on my guts. Fortunately, I have weapons of my own, and have been able to do a pretty good job of wrestling crypto to some kind of standstill. But let me tell you, it’s no fucking picnic.
It’s incredibly tiring — I’ve had two long naps today — and requires me to consume mass quantities of rehydrating liquid. Meanwhile, it seems likely that my laryngitis is a respiratory symptom of crypto; my breathing is now often uncomfortable (though not disabling).
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Posted in Language and food, Language and medicine, My life | 2 Comments »
August 3, 2026
One inspired by Aaron Broadwell, one by Steven Levine; I get a little help from my friends.
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Posted in Clothing, Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Language and the body, Language of sex, Linguists, Lives, My life, Photography, Taboo language and slurs | Leave a Comment »
August 2, 2026
(talk on bodily functions and the vocabulary for them, sometimes in street language, so not to everyone’s taste; also more than you might want to hear about Arnold’s Wonderful Whizz World)
About my current medical regimen, which involves significantly large doses of the steroid prednisone, intended to treat serious kidney problems (resulting in fluid accumulations in several parts of my body, quite visibly in my feet and legs) while staying under the dosage that, historically, makes me (to put this in the plainest terms) crazy. It’s a balancing act.
Yesterday, when I was overloaded with household revisions (including a new computer and printer) and had little time to sip my green tea pleasantly, the tide turned: I began, as we say, pissing like a racehorse, really quite remarkable amounts (also, I have to say, enormously pleasurable). For years now, I’ve lived with urinals scattered everywhere, so I can take quick whizzes without disrupting whatever I’m working on (if I’m laser-focused on what I’m doing, I can go for an hour without a whizz, but that’s pretty much my limit).
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Posted in Language and animals, Language and medicine, Lexicography, My life, Taboo language and slurs, Technical and ordinary language | Leave a Comment »
August 1, 2026
🐇🐇🐇 rabbit rabbit rabbit to inaugurate August, with a leporine shout-out to remember 1291, the traditional date of the formation of the Swiss federation: Hail, Helvetia!
Now to dive into today’s topic in medias res, with this 7/30 Facebook greeting from Pietro Giovanni to Aaron Broadwell on the occasion of AB’s 64th birthday, somewhere around that time:
Many returns of the day to my favorite linguist
AB is George Aaron Broadwell (known as Aaron Broadwell), Elling Eide Professor of Anthropology at the Univ. of Florida (Gainesville). PG is AB’s husband Peter Marino under the pseudonym Pietro Giovanni. For further complexity, since there are a regrettably large number of men named Peter Marino, some of them famous in their fields, Peter Marino uses the nickname Piet as his professional name; Piet Marino is the author of young adult novels (Dough Boy and Magic and Misery):
(#1) The Piet Marino logo
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Posted in Academic life, Conversation, Events and occasions, Friendship, Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Indigenous peoples, Language and the body, Language of sex, Linguists, Logos, Marriage, My life, Phallicity, Professional names, Pseudonyms, Speech acts, Switzerland and Swiss things, Teaching | 3 Comments »
