Monday, May 26, 2008

Poly-What??


For a little fun, look through a dictionary. Seriously! Check out words beginning with “poly,” and you will find all sorts of innuendos, if not outright sexy stuff. In my Webster’s New World Dictionary (WNWD), an old second college edition, there were five columns devoted to words that begin with “poly.”

Let's start with one we’ve all heard – polygamy. Whatever meaning you’ve ever given that word, I’ll bet you have it wrong! According to my WNWD, it is the state or practice of having more than one wife or husband at the same time. In other words, it’s having a plural marriage. Those lucky animals who are not human, they get to be polygamous all the time, because they can mate with more than one of the opposite sex and no one reports them to the authorities.

What we normally think of as polygamy, is really polygyny, which is having more than one wife or concubine at the same time. “Concubine” is WNWD’s word, not mine, but it is a rather sweet old-fashioned word, isn’t it? There are botanical and zoological meanings to that word, too, but we won’t go there this time.

If a woman decides to play with more than one man, she is polyandrous. We don’t run into that much, but sounds like something to look into. Again, those lucky stiffs in botany and zoology get to do that all the time.

There are other words in the “poly” vein that can have many meanings – uh, polysemic (having many meanings or being open to many meanings).

Try polydactyl – having more than the normal number of fingers or toes. That sounds like fun. I can think of all sorts of uses for a polydactyl lover, can’t you? (big evil grin)

Of course, there are some pleasant words with no particularly sexy meanings, like Polynesia (where I live), or polymath (a person of great and diversified learning). Those words give me a nice warm and cozy feeling.

My favorite “poly” word of all is polyamorous. My WNWD is so old that it’s not even listed in there! But check for it on the internet. In 0.12 seconds, Google came up with about 322,000 entries for polyamorous! They even have their own society.

I definitely can recommend a nice evening stroll through some of those listings. A site like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyamory can give you the nitty-gritty of it, but for sheer pleasure and fantasizing, I suggest you try http://www.polyamory.org/ or http://www.polyamorysociety.org/ or . . . well, I can’t even begin to name them all!

But please do take the Polyamory Purity Test http://www.polyamory.org/purity.html and you’ll find out just how impure you really are!

I blow you a kiss!

Fanny

3 comments:

Dee said...

So many lovely poly words :) (And hooray for living in Polynesia, which is over my side of the world!)

I am really impressed with your blog, and look forward to reading more.

xx Dee

Unknown said...

yay for words in general. language is beautiful. do you know of any poly poetry or fiction?

Fanny said...

Thank you for your comments! I don't know of any poly poetry or fiction, but I'm sure it's out there. Maybe I need to write it?