I suppose you people think you’re going to start a euphemisms-for-privates thread down in the comments. Well, you’re right. I’ll start with a brief anecdote:
An old neighbor of mine had a cousin who worked at a medical answering service, the people who pass your messages along to the doc on call. Because they’re calling the doctor out of a sound sleep and/or off the golf course, they’re instructed to ask minimal questions about the problem. So one night this woman calls and simply doesn’t want to say why she wants her gyno to get back to her ASAP. Hem, haw, etc. Finally the cousin says, “If you won’t tell us anything at all, we’re not allowed to call the doctor. Really, it’s OK” and the woman blurts out “MY TWAT ITCHES!” and hangs up.
They all had a good roll around the floor laughing at that one, and then the doctor, who was in the building, stops by for his messages. They’re still laughing, he asks why, they tell him and he says, “Hmm, I guess no one told her the medical term. Muffin.”
That story doesn’t read as funny as it tells, especially early in the morning with no alcohol, but that’s my contribution: Muffin.
And that’s it, because now I have to get ready for my long-overdue MRI of the right knee, which has been hurting for a year now. My MRI order reads “internal derangement,” which describes me many days, I think. Anyway, I think I’ll take a shower, shave my legs and strip all metal from my body. I’ll likely be back, but if you’re not — have a great long weekend.
Rory on LawnGuyland said on May 23, 2008 at 9:10 am
OK, I’ll start. Most guys I know simply call it “Mr. Happy.” As in, “Hey, honey, Mr. Happy’s awake.” Which usually elicits a response along the lines of, “Tell him to go back to sleep.” (Hey!)
And his companion parts are usually referred to as “My Boys.” And now that one of those summer fill-in TV shows is returning, it elicits stifled giggles from Your Faithful Scribe when the announcer intones, “Starting next week, an all new season of ‘My Boys!'” Yes, I’m 12; why do you ask?
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John said on May 23, 2008 at 9:12 am
strip all metal from my body
Piercings removal? Do tell.
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Connie said on May 23, 2008 at 9:34 am
Little Bobbie and the twins. Or whatever the guy’s actual name is. And for the ladies Taco, although what I hear most often is “girl parts.”
I’ve had the knee MRI. The tech offers me headphones and offered to tune in the radio station of my choice to listen to while I am staying perfectly still in the machine. I asked for NPR. Diane Rehm was interviewing an author who was telling in great detail the story of his mother’s suicide. The tech taps on my shoulder, at which point I realize that whatever I am listening to is also be on the room’s speakers, and he asks “are you sure you want to listen to that?” I suspect he didn’t.
I found it very very hard to keep as still as necessary and if I did it again I could accept the offered relaxant. My official diagnosis? Extreme tear in the lateral miniscus. The arthroscopic surgery made a huge difference, but that was some years ago, and now my doctor says I need new knees. I told her I would wait until my kid was finished at her expensive private college.
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Dorothy said on May 23, 2008 at 10:18 am
Count me among those who had a (left) knee MRI – 18 months ago. I had two kinds of internal derangement: arthritis and torn cartilage behind my knee.. I had Synvisc injections (series of 3 I believe) for the arthritis, but started with a steroid injection. That helped a little bit. I also take a daily dose of Celebrex for the knee pain. It tweaks on me once in awhile, and occasionally aches me if I walk too much. I hope surgery does not lie in wait for me. But who knows?
Muffin is a new one on me. My weird sister-in-law taught her daughter to call her privates her “pinky.” And her son’s was called “birdie.”
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whitebeard said on May 23, 2008 at 10:23 am
A sweet little old lady pushed me off an icy sidewalk in Montreal one winter and it hurt like the blazes even though I am usually insensitive to pain. I hobbled into the nearby movie theatre, figuring that resting my knee might solve the problem. I forget the movie but the pain vanished, However, as I got up to leave, there was a slight complication. My knee had locked up in a straight-out position and I had to ask the usherette to let me hobble out the exit door at ground level. I grabbed a taxi to the Royal Victoria Hospital, one of the many castlelike structures that grace Montreal.
After helping subdue a disturbed man with a rifle in the emergency room and after explaining to the police why I grabbed a loaded rifle and wrenched his fingers loose (it was pointed at my nose from about 8 inches away, damn it) the doctor used this humongous needle to drain fluid from under my kneecap. A kind taxi driver hauled a folding wheelchair up three flights of stairs to our apartment so I rolled merrily around the apartment, merry because my inner painkiller was working again.
I saw an orthopedic surgeon two weeks later who took some x-rays and said everything was torn up inside and I needed surgery as soon as possible. This was after he swore at me in French because he and his assistant tried unsuccessfully to move my knee to get a different x-ray view but neglected to let me in on their plans, which they should do when they have a 250-pound patient.
I asked what would happen if I did not get surgery and he said my knee would lock up and I would not be able to walk. Seeing as I still was not feeling pain (I love my internal painkiller) I said when it locked up, then I would think about surgery. Well, 37 years later and it still has not locked up, although I never played basketball or football again. Come to think of it, I never played much basketball or football before the knee incident, so it wasn’t much of a loss.
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Lex said on May 23, 2008 at 10:35 am
I hope the MRI techs had everything tied down … and that all goes well.
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anonymous said on May 23, 2008 at 10:40 am
And there’s the very old Christmas-time joke about the charity that was collecting vibrators for the needy. Toys for Twats.
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whitebeard said on May 23, 2008 at 10:41 am
Ah, the private parts vocabulary. I called UPI once because they had a story about a protester claiming that the Vietnam memorial was the biggest gash in Washington, even bigger than Jane Fonda’s. I told this young lady that, ummm, in Vietnam, soldiers said, umm, gash when they were referring to a woman’s ummm, slice of heaven. She laughed and said she would correct it herself because she doubted if the young man who had edited the story had ever seen the real thing so would not have known any nicknames.
I also called Canadian Press much earlier when they had a bank robbery story in which the robber emptied the teller’s drawers, which to me would have been a considerable distraction when he was only after money. I thought I had made my point clear that drawers was another word for panties or underwear on a woman, bank tellers usually being female in those days, but when I saw the next version, the story said the robber had emptied the cashier’s drawers. Duh?
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coozledad said on May 23, 2008 at 11:03 am
Little Elvis.
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LA Mary said on May 23, 2008 at 11:07 am
Pork Sword or One Eyed Trouser Snake.
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Kirk said on May 23, 2008 at 11:13 am
When I was a young feller covering the police beat in Hillsboro, Ohio, one of the town drunks whose name kept showing up in the arrest column was Harry Gash.
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michaela said on May 23, 2008 at 11:13 am
We are going through the private-parts discussion on a daily basis with my 2-year-old daughter. We’re using the anatomically correct terms (in hopes that my daughter is slightly less befuddled and/or ostracized in high school than I was ). Most of the time I’m fine with that, but when she interrogates me about each of our family members — “Gammy have a peanut? What PopPop have? Aunt Ann have a ‘gina?” — I wish we’d chosen euphemisms like pinky & birdie… Discussing your in laws’ genitalia using the proper terminology is emphatically Not Fun. (And, for the record, Gammy does NOT have a peanut. At least as far as I know.)
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Edward Carney said on May 23, 2008 at 11:23 am
“Muffin” makes sense, if you see it as a euphemization of the euphemism “muff,” which only makes sense when you think that it comes from a time when the pre-pubescent look was only desired by pedophiles.
Interesting. I feel obligated to be indirect, even when discussing euphemisms.
There was a Canadian slang expression, “muffin,” now merely a historical curiosity, which designated a young woman chosen by a young man to be his “steady” for the social season.
Here’s the OED entry for “muff.” Who knew the OED read like “My Secret Life”?
2. a. slang. The female pubic hair. Hence also: the vulva, the vagina. Cf. muff-diver n. at Compounds 2.
1699 B. E. New Dict. Canting Crew, Muff, c. a Woman’s Secrets. To the well-wearing of your Muff Mort, c. to the happy Consummation of your Marriage Madam, a Health. c1700 in V. de S. Pinto & A. E. Rodway Common Muse (1957) 396 She told me ‘twould pleasure an Earl, For she had a delicate Muff. 1707 in J. S. Farmer Merry Songs & Ballads (1897) IV. 110 The Muff between her Haunches, Resembl’d..a Mag-Pye’s Nest. c1795 in J. Barke & S. G. Smith Merry Muses Caledonia 149 Meg had a muff and it was rough Twas black without and red within.
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alex said on May 23, 2008 at 11:37 am
The Gen Y crowd seems partial to “beavage” for ass and “doobage” for grass. One of my Boomer neighbors recently mentioned that we have a couple of “carpet munchers” across the lake (whom I’d previously taken to be a man and a woman). He’s always talking about how he enjoys having his “knob polished.” One of my old buddies in Chicago is partial to “breastesses.” Another likes “slapping around old, bald Edgar.”
Me, I like “snatch” (the word, mind you). And I really like “thang.”
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whitebeard said on May 23, 2008 at 11:43 am
I remember muffin and muff-diver usage in Canada and another was “beaver” although its usage varied between Eastern and Western Canada. In Eastern Canada, Smoky the Bear said “save a tree, eat a beaver” but out west, one correspondent wrote a cutline for a photo of some beautiful young ladies in a (no-kidding) Beaver Club contest for the newspaper and said that Vancouver is known for having the best beavers in the west.
Could be, but Vancouver’s erotic listings in the yellow pages seem to cater to men seeking older matronly women, perhaps because of an abundance of pubic hair. Back in Montreal, one of the posh restaurants at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel was called the Beaver Club.
Back when I started in television, the cameraman almost fell off his stool when the sports announcer asked the huge lady weighlifter he was interviewing if he could see her “snatch”
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Julie Robinson said on May 23, 2008 at 11:52 am
I wouldn’t touch this discussion with a ten foot, um, er, pole!
Count of hands: how many people know when it’s going to rain by their level of knee pain? Me too. Sad, isn’t it, that when we get together we’re discussing the un-fun body parts instead of our latest fun activity.
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nancy said on May 23, 2008 at 11:55 am
The scan went fine, but my internal derangement remains undiagnosed. Now I have to tote the CD to an ortho. But I can look at the images, the tech said; just slip this into your PC.
No I can’t. Not Mac-compatible.
The tech told a flying-objects story, about a man who simply refused to wear the gown and swore on a stack of bibles he had no metal anywhere on him. She reluctantly relented, put him in the sling and turned the machine on. Whereupon a pocket knife flew out of his breast pocket. Dumbass.
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Sue said on May 23, 2008 at 11:56 am
Holy gods, what a turn this conversation is taking. I’m not sure who said this (I believe Erica Jong), but the saying goes “If men knew what women laugh about, they would never sleep with us again”. I can’t look at my girlfriend’s husband without thinking of the words “button mushroom”. But of course I don’t laugh.
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nancy said on May 23, 2008 at 12:00 pm
At Rob Reiner’s Friars Club roast, someone said of him, “He’s so hairy his dick looks like a button on a fur coat.” There’s an image I won’t soon forget.
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brian stouder said on May 23, 2008 at 12:14 pm
And, for the record, Gammy does NOT have a peanut. At least as far as I know
Last week Red Cross sprang a new question on me, amongst their usual litany; something like – are you the same gender now as when you were born? (I had to think twice)…so gammy may have a peanut (or gramps could have a gina) – but then they can’t donate blood!
There was a rock song a few years back, about “my sweet cherry pie” – which made me think he (Axl Rose?) was referring to his significant other’s nether regions. But if she had ‘cherry pie’ going, presumeably it would be a ‘no fly zone’
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whitebeard said on May 23, 2008 at 12:18 pm
The current discussion sent my brain in awkward family name alert and I caught this just a few minutes ago “Kathleen Titsworth, a banking department spokeswoman” There is a large Titsworth clan, although one Ann Titsworth also goes by the stage name Tammy Tittie. Can this discussion ever end peacefully and gracefully?
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Kirk said on May 23, 2008 at 12:25 pm
As for “slapping around old, bald Edgar,” I’m partial to the expressions “boxing Goofy” and “shining the dragon,” the latter of which made it into a caption for a photo of a guy who was, in fact, polishing a dragon statue.
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del said on May 23, 2008 at 1:07 pm
My daughter calls a boy’s part his “Weenis.”
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beb said on May 23, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Several years ago Channel 4 was doing a feature on the arrival of new “Toy Story” merchandise. At the end the co-host asked Carmin Harmen what toy she’d picked up and if it was the cowboy star of the movie. “Did you get a Woody?” he asked. I swear. I was watching when it happened.
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Mindy said on May 23, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Twig and berries, as the Brits say. And she’s a real peach.
My knee woes began at birth and were just something to live with. Then one evening about ten years ago I wanted to play our new computer game Monty Python’s Complete Waste of Time and dropped the disc on the floor. It rolled under the desk out of easy reach. While bending and kneeling to fish it out the kneecap on my weak knee slipped in one direction and the rest of my body slipped in the other direction. The pain was so bad I couldn’t breathe, and I’ve tolerated knee pain most of my life. The doctor didn’t want to do an MRI figuring it was just a waste of time and scheduled surgery for two days later. While inspecting the tear he was surprised to find the minor birth defect and that the side of my kneecap was shredded from a lifetime of banging around the wrong way. During physical therapy I learned that my quadriceps were so atrophied that my leg was overusing all the other muscles in order for me to walk. Which explains why I was always such a lousy skier.
The only activity the doctor insisted I never do again is biking because the knee is missing too much cartilage to pedal for very long. Very sad. Every year I get my bike off the garage wall and slowly ride around for fifteen minutes or so just to remember the fun times we had together. And when something rolls under a large piece of furniture, I sit on my butt and fish it out with a yardstick or whatever else is handy.
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Sue said on May 23, 2008 at 1:56 pm
A couple I know believe in treating their children like little adults, so when the “where do babies come from” questions came, nothing was left out. The oldest boy, who is smarter than his parents and knew exactly what he was doing, took the next opportunity to explain it all to Grandma. Grandma, who is smarter than all of them, took her opportunity (long awaited, I would guess) and explained to all the concept of appropriate social conversation.
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del said on May 23, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Sue, the question is, what is the age at which a kid should get “the talk.” My gut feeling is this: if you wait until the conversation becomes awkard you’ve waited too long.
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Sue said on May 23, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Awkward? Hah. My daughter and I still laugh about our version of “the talk”. I began to discuss it with her… and started to laugh. And kept laughing. She didn’t help with questions like “well, you’re asleep, right?”.
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Joe K. said on May 23, 2008 at 3:08 pm
The bbv, (big blue veiner)
sanding the old main mast.
punching the clown.
Dave K,
can you remember any more??
Joe k
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del said on May 23, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Disciplining the juvenile felon.
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brian stouder said on May 23, 2008 at 3:14 pm
“the talk”
We have ‘the talk’ in dribs and drabs, as things arise (so to speak). Plus, last week was McMillan Health Center week, when the kids get bused over and seperated (all boys & all girls), and taught the biological stuff.
the biological stuff is of course the ‘easy’ thing to impart; but the emotional/visceral part really cannot be – other than to forewarn the young folks about them (akin to saying that car crashes are unique experiences)
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Kirk said on May 23, 2008 at 3:26 pm
slammin’ the ham
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brian stouder said on May 23, 2008 at 3:28 pm
shakin’ hands with the governor
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Sue said on May 23, 2008 at 3:32 pm
You guys are just… awful.
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MichaelG said on May 23, 2008 at 3:38 pm
The Oregon State mascot is the beaver. The female athletes are known as the “Lady Beavers” which I and my Pac 10 watching friends always thought was repetitively redundant.
Mindy, get a new knee. I’ve talked to lots of people who have had knee replacements and they have all had only one regret: that they hadn’t done it sooner.
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moe99 said on May 23, 2008 at 3:47 pm
wrt MRIs and metal. It’s one more reason not to get tatoos because many have metal in the paints used. It can create severe burns if the tattoed individual undergoes an MRI. So far, it’s worked with my kids. Along with the question, “have you ever seen a tatoo that looked good on a geezer?” Not that they will ever be a geezer mind you.
wrt to euphemisms for Mr. Johnson and/or “the act” There was a dorm in my midwestern small liberal arts college that was the Animal House dorm (Dayton Hall). On one of the men’s floors in the john, the residents started a list on the door to a privy. It went way long, and the last one written over the weekend, was “fetchup my ketchup” with a foot long hot dog hanging from a string next to it (yes, the cafeteria was serving them at the time, why did you ask?).
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brian stouder said on May 23, 2008 at 3:49 pm
You guys are just… awful.
Hey, it’s all Cosmo Panzini’s and Jolene’s fault; they left this barndoor open a thread ago
The female athletes are known as the “Lady Beavers”
reminds me of the old joke about the difference between a group of Pygmies and an all-girl track team; but, never mind!
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alex said on May 23, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Chastising the Pope.
Brian, you cunning runt.
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alex said on May 23, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Oh, and Mindy, as regards knee replacement surgeries, I see a lot of medical records pertaining to these. Doctors typically decline to perform them on patients younger than 55-60 years old. For younger patients there’s a procedure called a tibial osteotomy, although it’s considered very iffy in terms of outcomes.
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Kirk said on May 23, 2008 at 4:20 pm
chokin’ the chicken
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Jolene said on May 23, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Hey, don’t blame me! I posed an intellectual challenge: identifying words for female sexual parts that are fun to say. Can I help it if other people have tossed in words for male parts and for sexual acts, solo and otherwise.
(I’m surprised, actually, that there haven’t been more contributions. This is a big linguistic domain, folks, and so much more fun than knees!)
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colleen said on May 23, 2008 at 5:43 pm
I think Mythbusters did an episode about tattoos and MRIs, and busted the myth that the metals in the inks would cause problems.
My mom gave me the talk when I asked, around age 6 or 7. She explained how babies were made, and I recall my big thought at the end being. “well. ok. but why would anyone want to DO that??”
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Dexter said on May 23, 2008 at 6:30 pm
little elvis…coozledad is a Twin Peaks fan….
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moe99 said on May 23, 2008 at 6:37 pm
via wikipedia, jury’s still out whether tattoos do not cause problems via MRIs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tattoo
There’s plenty other problems to mention as well.
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moe99 said on May 23, 2008 at 7:00 pm
from Australia:
“unbutton the mutton and wring the rattlesnake”
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Kirk said on May 23, 2008 at 7:21 pm
also from australia: raging Roger
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MarkH said on May 23, 2008 at 8:08 pm
A little diversion:
Hey, Joe K. —
Could you do this without the ultimate face(cowl)plant?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDDBbmedrgk
Of course, you could. Actually, here’s Joe on his day off:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hcWZcXeik0&feature=related
Have a great weekend, everyone!
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Joe K said on May 23, 2008 at 8:36 pm
The first one is really dangerous, one mistake and your done. Although I would love to fly a t-6. I carry a picture of my late father in one. He changed his birth certificate, and soloed one of those big birds at age 19. He had big ones made of solid brass. The other looks like fun, although unless I was doing the flying I would hurl.
Five knuckle shuffle,
floggin the dolphin
polishing the bishop
Have a great weekend
blue sky’s
Pilot Joe
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Leo Morris said on May 23, 2008 at 9:40 pm
In “The Thin Man,” Nick and Nora are going through the newspapers, reading the accounts of Nick being shot at.
NICK: I was shot twice in the Tribune.
NORA: I was just reading that you got shot five times in the tabloids.
NICK: It’s not true. He didn’t come anywhere near my tabloids.
Pretty bold for 1934.
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coozledad said on May 23, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Dexter: Yep. But I have to admit watching about half the episodes too drunk to recall them, some with a hand over one eye. The first time I heard about ‘little Elvis’ was from a friend of mine who lived rockabilly. If anyone drank more than me at the time it was him. Once, when the spirit of Carl Perkins was upon him, he stole a pizza truck that had been left idling in front of the club where he was playing. He vanished for a few weeks afterward.
He told us the authorities had strongly encouraged him to “visit his uncle’s farm”, which my wife and I took to mean rehab.
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Terry WAlter said on May 24, 2008 at 5:43 am
Several years ago, I had a bout of,as it turned out, epididimytis. The diagnosis involved a young lovely grabbing my love handle and yanking it around to various positions, while applying gel to my sack and watching a live action display of the ‘boys’. Meanwhile,we made medical & small talk conversation, ignoring the ‘Elephant in the Room’. I must have been hurting,as I didn’t get any wood; hard to imagine any other similar circumstances where it didn’t happen. Then I got home & my wife wanted to know what I’d been doing. She didn’t believe my story, as I told it.
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basset said on May 24, 2008 at 10:53 am
one of my former (male) coworkers used to refer to the female parts as the “hairy holster”…
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Cosmo Panzini said on May 24, 2008 at 2:49 pm
My God. I had no idea.
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Dave K. said on May 24, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Hey Joe, first thing I thought of was “The Wily Ol’ Snorker”, from an Australian rugby mate, I believe.
The (solo) act, “Jerkin’ the Gherkin”.
Best usage in a (rugby) song lyric, “A twat that twitches like a moose’s earrr…”.
Unforgettable conversation with a self-proclaimed “Kentucky Hillbilly”, (at 14 yrs of age), “That’s why they call it the ‘Taint, son, ‘taint ass, ‘taint pussy…”.
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basset said on May 25, 2008 at 10:54 am
surprised nobody’s mentioned Mrs. Palm and her five comely daughters…
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brian stouder said on May 27, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Jerkin’ the Gherkin
Gosh – hard to decide whether to applaud the modesty, or retch at the thought of ever placing another gherkin on my bun!
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Scout said on May 27, 2008 at 7:04 pm
My dearly departed Grandma used to call my nether region a “Francis.” Why, I couldn’t possibly tell you. The story of my shock as a four year old, the first time I met someone by that name, is family legend. They tell me I had a look of absolute horror followed by the comment, “That CAN’T be somebody’s name!” Then the adults had to decide whether to explain to poor Francis why I had such a reaction or just grab me by the hand and make a hasty retreat. She’s probably still wondering.
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brian stouder said on May 28, 2008 at 9:09 am
Well, Fort Wayne had a mayor named Harry Baals, back in the days before the internet (think of all the electioneering and the post-election headline possibilities, if one is not bound be family-friendly) – and today there is a street – Harry W Baals Drive. One assumes that his parents had a sadistic laugh when they hung that name (so to speak) on him…on the other hand, he apparently rose above it, and became mayor
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