After the Firecrotch

I've been reading the Press Release of the American Dialect Society's 2006 Word of the Year nominations (click here). I was especially struck by the Most Outrageous category, which in previous years presented awards for the words "cliterati" and "santorum.

Most Outrageous WINNER Cambodian accessory: Angelina Jolie’s adopted child who is Cambodian.
RUN-OFF: Cambodian accessory 61, sudden jihad syndrome 36
Cambodian accessory 20
firecrotch: a person with red pubic hair. 10
macaca: an American citizen treated as an alien. 14
tramp stamp: a tattoo on a woman’s upper bottom (or lower back). 7
sudden jihad syndrome: an outburst of violence from a seemingly stable and normal Muslim. 38

And yes, the word that sprung out at me was "firecrotch", because I have horribly fond memories of being in sophomore year, disrobing a Jewish engineering student in my Furnald single, astonished at the brilliant ginger of his pubes.

I do miss my college days, not only for the kind of play I was getting but also for the kind of person I was, eager to love, eager to speak, helpless, senseless, relentless.

I don't have a pic of his pubes but I have ended up bookmarking one of his nipple. The auburn is only subliminally visible, due to the fineness of the hairs.


Other wonderful words:

Most Euphemistic
WINNER waterboarding: an interrogation technique in which the subject is immobilized and doused with water to simulate drowning; reported to be used by U.S. interrogators against terrorism detainees.

Most Useful
WINNER climate canary: an organism or species whose poor health or declining numbers hint at a larger environmental catastrophe on the horizon.

Most Creative
WINNER lactard: a person who is lactose-intolerant.

Hmm. I suppose this post suggests that my sexual perversity is inextricable from my literary perversity, followed by gustatory hunger. An ideal date would thus involve being humped vigorously while my partner recites the works of Helene Cixous and allows me to devour raw tuna off his wasabi-coated tits.