Mourning the loss of yet another word: "Fondle"

[MineralMan]

Based on it's root, "fond," this word used to mean to touch gently out of fondness. I often fondle my beagle's long silky ears, and he loves it. People used to use the word in connection with the gentle rubbing of an infants head and other gentle communication through touch.

No more. Now, it has come to mean some sort of inappropriate sexual touching. The word is lost to the English language in its original meaning now.

Too bad! I was fond of the word.

[Orrex]

1. That word has been super-creepy for decades

At least since the 70s.

[MineralMan]

2. I still miss its original meaning, though.

[Orrex]

8. Well, we're generally discouraged from ejaculating in public, too

No matter how sudden and excited our exclamations might be.

[MineralMan]

9. "Stop that at once!" he ejaculated.

[sl8]

13. Oh, come now.

[moriah]

28. Yet mastication is often a public group activity.

"Those crazy humans..." --J Random Kreetassan

[Leith]

31. Sherlock Holmes Did That

but only half as much as Dr. Watson.

I love British panel shows. This one is called QI (for "Quite Interesting&quot . Another favorite is "Would I Lie to You?" They're hilarious.

[steve2470]

30. yeppers, never heard it used EXCEPT sexual nt

[sammythecat]

37. In Catholic grade school

ejaculations were encouraged. As often as possible in fact.

Seriously, ejaculations were short prayers meant to be said throughout the day. I think they all had indulgences attached that would give you a certain sentence reduction for your time in Purgatory. My favorite was "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph", it was short and had a 7 year indulgence. I said it a LOT when I first learned of it. Some were much longer but had much shorter indulgences, which made little sense.

I don't know if they still do this or not. I had religion class every day for 12 years but only remember this being talked about when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade. I imagine they consider it archaic now, but it was a real thing at one time. A long time ago.

[Yonnie3]

3. There is a trend to make all things binary.

There seems to be no middle ground and no spectrum between good and bad. Subtleties seem to be lost to many in our society.

A phrase I used to use a lot, "it is a matter of degree not kind," seems to draw a blank. Welcome to the age of polarization.

[Igel]

20. Makes you wonder about acceptance of "nuance," doesn't it?

But the polarization is social, caused by having social judgments be completely superficial because they have to encourage the correct policies without taking much time to investigate.

Also because often investigation isn't just difficult, but ambiguous. And just as we hate nuance, we also dislike ambiguity. Going by innuendo and superficial traits is a Good Thing as we stigmatize more and more in order to be more and more pure.

Political Hasidim, that's what many are.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. The word does seem to have picked up some skeevy overtones.

I can say I pet my cats and that's fine, but if I say I fondle them it sounds like something verging on bestiality - when all I'm doing is giving them a welcome ear skritch.

[MineralMan]

7. Don't get me started on "petting..."

Petting your cat or dog is just fine, but...

"Here's some advice for you teens. A little necking might seem OK to you, but don't get started with that petting stuff. That can only lead to one thing." - Heard from the youth minister at the church I attended as a youngster back in the early 60s, during the annual perfunctory discussion of dating, etc. He always stumbled, though, when trying to explain the difference between necking and petting. We always asked him to tell us the difference, just to see him squirm.

[sl8]

5. And yet, people still speak of "fondue" in respectable company.

Hardly seems fair.

[MineralMan]

10. Yeah, but the root "fond" means something completely

different in French than it does in English. Once we stray into other languages, things get really, really confusing.

[sl8]

11. Good point.

Saying that you like to fondue your dog's ears conveys something entirely different.

[MineralMan]

12. I'm sure my dog would not appreciate that.

However, he seems to think the other meaning is a wonderful thing, since he comes over to me frequently for a little ear fondling. It's not loyalty, either. He'll go up to anyone who will rub his ears.

[Igel]

21. Brisket rub? n/t

[OnDoutside]

6. If it was between two consenting adults, can we now call it "Fundle" ?

[MineralMan]

14. Look up "bundling," an old tradition in the United States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_(tradition)

You might have to paste that in, due to the parentheses.

[VermontKevin]

15. I once bought an antique bed that had slots for a bundle board.

Given my regular sleep disturbances, my partner would love to have one.

[OnDoutside]

16. Wow, not much fun in that ! (Definitely Dutch though...anything to save on paying for heating !)

[MineralMan]

17. Oh, I expect there was lots of fun in it back in the days

when it was part of courtship. Sure, they started all wrapped in blankets, but...look out after the old folks start snoring. And if things happened, a marriage would follow, in most cases. No big deal.

"It was a teenage wedding, and the old folks wished them well..."

[Igel]

23. It's apparently the usual American history innuendo.

My 8th grade history teacher sort of made a big deal out of it.

(Just as my college freshman history teacher made a big deal out of some Massachusetts data from the 1600s. It was census records, from which we were to look at the average age of marriage. The point was that marriages happened later and later as land became scarcer and subdivision was more difficult. If you looked carefully, though, you also noticed that the average time from marriage to first birth, as land became scarcer, decreased from over 9 months to closer to 4 months. Then land would be opened up for settlement and the marriage age would drop down to 16 again, with age at first birth being >10 months after marriage.)

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

18. First, they came for "moist", ...

Then, they came for "fondle".

What next?

[MineralMan]

19. Well, "intercourse" was lost much longer ago.

It used to mean conversation or deal-making. On the other hand, it still involves those things, I suppose.

[angstlessk]

26. I was going to include intercourse..in some old readings it's still there.

Used mostly as conversation. Didn't know the Deal Making definition.

[muriel_volestrangler]

22. Good news! The Oxford English Dictionary suggests an alternative in its definition

"To treat with fond indulgence; to cocker, pamper."

Surely nothing could go wrong with "cocker"?

[Igel]

24. If you're familiar with the words, nothing.

"Cock" as "rooster" was fine in co-existence with "cock" as "penis."

When people stopped hearing the "rooster" meaning suddenly the other meaning surged forth. So to speak.

Once, for some reason, played something by Beethoven. My students accused him of ripping off that whole 'ode to joy' theme that they'd heard in some commercial. Thus showing that "my kids" have a firm grasp on how effect produces cause. These are also kids who have no idea how to read cursive or to tell time using a traditional clock face. (Leading me to have a clock in my room that not only isn't digital, but lacks any numbers at all.)

Some have even assumed that the verb "pamper" means "to diaper."



It's not an uncommon way for words to fall out of a language. Social unrest typically correlates with faster language change, and it's likely that transmission of cultural and linguistic norms are at the root. Assimilating a mass of speakers from different languages has the same effect, often creolizing the grammar (the easy thing to study) while chucking a bunch of words out of the language through desuetude.

[MineralMan]

27. Fewer than 1% of English speakers are familiar

with the word "desuetude."

[BootinUp]

25. If asked to use it in a sentence, I would probably construct one with a teddy bear in it.

So maybe its not totally lost.

[steve2470]

29. There's another word I would not dare to post here

Way back in the day, it meant stingy. You can still read it in old books and maybe a new one or two.

I've never regarded fondle as anything BUT sexual. I'm not that much younger than you, MM, and it's always meant something sexual to me.

[MineralMan]

32. If you mean "niggardly," that's

silly. It's a perfectly good word, which is derived from a completely different linguistic root. Its spelling clearly indicates that.

[steve2470]

33. well, I agree but apparently there's an ignorant contingent who...

conflates it with the N word. Wrongly. I just won't use it period, not worth the aggravation of educating people.

[MineralMan]

34. I don't use it because most people don't understand it.

That applies to an ever-increasing number of useful, precise words. More's the pity.

[steve2470]

35. yes that reason also nt

[MineralMan]

36. I once worked on a website content project that

was marketing advanced technology components to a very narrow clientele working in a particular industry. The whole designer I was working for got the completed content and objected because "it required too high of a reading level." He had run it through an Internet "readability analysis" site.

He knew nothing about that field. I did. I explained it to him several times, but he just couldn't get it. I finally told him, out of frustration, to just send it to the client and stop wasting my time. The client liked the work and said was just what they wanted.

The web designer finally stopped bugging me about level of diction issues after that. I adjust to my target audience automatically as I write.

[sammythecat]

38. I think it was in the 90's

a staff member to the mayor of Washington, D.C. was forced to resign because of all the misunderstanding of his correct use of the word "niggardly". http://www.adversity.net/special/niggardly.htm