> That email was more or less tongue-in-cheek. I thought it was quite a nifty
> (hence my categorising it as "funny") way of Mark's to encompass both homo-
> and heterosexuals with the word, punning on "bi-". In fact, I hadn't known
> that hermaphrodites were once called "bisexuals". No offence/ignorance meant
> -- apologies.
> Of course, we also vaguely know why "bisexual" won out over
> "amphoterosexual" ultimately, given the number of syllables in each and the
> general laziness of humans.
>
> Eugene
>
> On Sat, May 31, 2008 at 2:20 AM, R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:
>
>> Eugene Oh wrote:
>>
>>> "Monosexuals" is a funny word!
>>>
>>
>> I do not see why "monosexual" is any more or less funny than "bisexual".
>> The latter was, when I was young, and adjective meaning 'having both male
>> &
>> female sex organs', i.e. hermaphrodite. Over the last half century the
>> word
>> has shifted to mean 'attracted sexually to both sexes.'
>>
>> On the analogy of homosexual & heterosexual one would've expected
>> 'attracted sexually to both sexes' to be *amphoterosexual, but it ain't;
>> and
>> shifts in meaning happen all the time in living languages,
>>
>> The imaginative boundaries for that are
>>> practically non-existent.
>>>
>> No more, meseems, that for 'bisexual' if one wants to be imaginative.
>>
>> Is a monosexual someone who...
>>>
>>> (a) Has only one sex as opposed to the rest of the world, which has two
>>> or
>>> more?
>>>
>>
>> ?? Surely most people in this world have only one sex, either male or
>> female. Hermaphrodites, i.e. bisexuals in the older meaning, are a
>> minority.
>> Most of us on this list, I guess, are monosexual, i.e. have only one sex,
>> as
>> opposed to bisexual in the sense of 'having both male & female sex
>> organs'.
>>
>> (b) Has sex once?
>>>
>>
>> Yeah, yeah - kinda like a bisexual has sex only twice!
>>
>> [snip]
>>
>>> On Sat, May 31, 2008 at 12:21 AM, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 11:49 AM, Eugene Oh <un.doing@...> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I found that a tad offensive... but maybe it's just me.
>>>>>
>>>> I'm sure Roger meant nothing by it, but yeah, one reads an implication
>>>> that bisexuals are somehow more likely than monosexuals to carry
>>>> viruses. Which is indeed an offensive assertion...
>>>>
>>>
>> Surely Mark's coinage of monosexual is quite logical in view of the
>> contemporary meaning of 'bisexual'. It's also IMO very neat as it
>> encompasses both heterosexual and homosexuals.
>>
>> FWIW my original remarks about bi and bii were simply making fun of the
>> not
>> uncommon pseudo-Latin plurals of _virus_, thus:
>> bus ~ bi, on the analogy of virus ~ viri
>> bus ~ bii, on the analogy of virus ~ virii
>>
>> --
>> Ray
>> ==================================
>>
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
>> ==================================
>> Frustra fit per plura quod potest
>> fieri per pauciora.
>> [William of Ockham]
>>
>