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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   1483 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 3, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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For those (like me) wondering why "female" should be related to "sucking", it's because the babies suck on their mothers breast. (See https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/female and follow the etymology links.)

Another fun note is that the old-english for male was "weaponed" because their was a weapon between their legs: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/w%C3%A6pned#Old_English

In fact, wæpn seems to have had a secondary meaning of penis. Disappointingly, the original meaning seems to have been weapon (as this is the only meaning given for the proto-Germanic ancestor). It would have been better if weapons had been named after penises.

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A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

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