Rectification of names I've stuck with
whore—from the Indo-European root
ka-, meaning "desire"—for its punch, and the
R in it (see index), but there are other words I could have used: the lilting, Latinate trip of three steps from lips to palate to teeth:
prostitute or the non-judgmental
sex worker which, like
working girl, highlights the bill-by-the-hour aspect of the whore's professional life.
Service provider has the billable hours connotation too, besides suggesting the hub-and-spoke, client/server architecture of the whore's networking. Then there are words for whores who've sought out different market niches: courtesan, streetwalker; the Greek
heterae and pornai; and old-fashioned words like harlot, tart, and trollop.
Or a two-syllable punch: "hooker."
But I like words of one syllable.
She's a whore.
I whore.
One word one flesh: one flesh one word.
{NA}
NotesSee
here for Confucian source of the concept "rectification of names."
1. From the
WikiPedia entry. See also
here and
here. "Whore" also seems to have richer connections to other words; "whore's eggs" ("ose eggs") for sea urchins in Newfoundland-ese, for example (
here, thanks to Antiquarian
DTG).
2. The OED gives a secondary, mid-16th to mid-17th Century meaning for prostitute: "Offer with complete devotion or self-denial." Cf.
"Consent of the governed".
3. According to Rosalie Maggio in the
Dictionary of Bias-Free Usage, "
Whore used to be a nonjudgmental term describing a lover of either sex." See for example
here. For examples mainstreaming, see
here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here ("Intellectual Whores"), and of course
here (if the site asks for a password, just click through and the page will display).
4. "Girl," with rare exceptions, is not used as a synonym or euphemism for "working girl." William Gibson's Molly calls herself a "working girl." Gibson also introduces the corporatist euphemism
field psychologist in his novel
Count Zero.
5. The network concept is suggested by "
Internet service provider."
6. "Public woman" is not, I think, correct. Any privacy that a whore feels is essential, she is fully capable of retaining. (Though see
this entry).
{NA}
>> posted by Anonymous
• 1/24/2004 07:42:00 PM
•
