Sex Education 101

Well, that certainly got your attention!

Don’t get too excited…unless you are like me and enjoy etymology; the study of word origins and how their meanings have changed over the years. I’ve been intrigued by words for as long as I can remember. My ears have perked up at unusual sounding words such as: philatelist (studier/collector of stamps); cruciverbalist (creator or solver of crossword puzzles – cruci for cross and verbal for word); and prestidigitation (the act of performing magic – a loose translation means quick or nimble fingers).

And how about onomatopoeia? Do you remember learning about that in school? It’s the formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named - e.g., sizzle, swoosh, boing, meow, buzz. In 1968, when I first heard the song In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, by Iron Butterfly, I found it funny that the title sounded similar to the word onomatopoeia. Even funnier is the fact that the song was originally called In the Garden of Eden, but came out as in-a-gadda-da-vida because the lead singer, Doug Ingle, had consumed a gallon of cheap red wine and slurred the words.

But I digress, as I am wont to do. Back to sex education! Did you know there are at least 120 words that begin with s-e-x? The list begins with sex and ends with sexy. The words in between mean very different things.

Sex can be a noun or a verb. As a noun it refers to sexual activity or a person’s gender. As verb, sexing generally refers to determining the sex of an animal (i.e. sexing chickens) and to sex up refers to livening something up (i.e. sex up an ad or marketing concept).

There are words where the prefix “sex” means six, from the Latin language.

· A sext is a religious service that is said (or chanted) at the sixth hour.

· A sextant a navigational instrument with a graduated arc of 60° and a sighting mechanism, used for measuring the angular distances between objects.

· Sexdigital means having 6 fingers and 6 toes on each hand and foot.

· A sexvirate is a group of six men.

· A sexagenarian is a persone between 60 and 69 years of age.

And then there’s the word sexton; a person who looks after a church and churchyard, sometimes acting as bell-ringer and formerly as a gravedigger. This goes back to the medieval Latin word, sacristanus.

So there you have it! Sex Education 101 by Professor Phoenicia Ashe.

I hope you have enjoyed this. May your ears perk up at the sound of certain words and lead you to Google the word and learn more about it.

p.s.

Check out the song Onomatopoeia by Todd Rundgren

https://youtu.be/9SAVo5t66WY