Re: "I didn't know that..."

On 3/14/06, Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...> wrote:
> Jim Henry skrev:
> OTOH Sprague writes:
>
> _The exclamation-point is used after a simple address, as well as
> after an ejaculation._
>
> I had no idea that _ejaculation_ could mean "A sudden short exclamation,
> especially a brief pious utterance or prayer."
>
> Now that *is* ridiculous.
It's rarely used in that sense anymore, probably to avoid the
double entendre.  (Which suggests the question: did the other
sense of "ejaculation" arise only recently, or did it become more
common only recently, or did people get more sensitive to the
double entendre, or what?)  I think the only time I've seen it used
that way is in a late 19th century English translation of St. Francis de Sales'
_Treatise on the Love of God_, translating close French cognates
as in "oraison ejaculatoire" > "ejaculatory prayer".  This by the same
translator who deleted from his translation all or most of St. Francis's
references to breastfeeding and pregnancy lest they perturb the
minds of Victorian girls.

--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry