Intercourse to Arouse Lost Communication

When I joined secondary school, we had an interesting lady teacher. She had this tendency of going back through the ages to bring us literary items just so that we could understand how the English language developed. She once brought us what we had initially assumed to be a poem. It turned out to have been a song that was apparently written by a 16 year old girl in the 1950s. It went something like this;

            

            Oh my boy lollipop,

            You are like candy,

            You make my heart go di di up,

            My boy lollipop................

One morning the teacher came to class, called us to attention and said, “Let’s have an intercourse!” For a moment, we didn’t know how to react. We just stared at her, mouths agape. She suddenly burst into laughter calling us evil minded. She explained that intercourse was just another word for an exchange of thoughts and that was all she wanted us to do. Sex, she said, was only one of the many forms of intercourse we could have.

I have come to realise that intercourse is not the only word whose meaning has drifted over the years. Other words have had such a drastic change in their meanings that they now mean the exact opposite of their original versions. We know a bully to mean a person who is habitually cruel to weaker people. Originally however, a bully was actually a superb or wonderful person. To be sad is to be unhappy. Previously, being sad was being satisfied or content.

If you say you have heartburn, we know you are suffering from a physical health condition. If you had said so a long time ago, we would wonder why you are filled with so much jealousy and hatred, for that was the meaning then. If someone called you nice, you would not have been happy about it. This is because the person would have considered you to be foolish or unknowledgeable. It is what we would refer to today as being ‘clueless’.

Some bodily functions have taken over words which previously meant other things. To ejaculate, for example, did not mean the enjoyment of conjugal rights. It meant ‘to utter suddenly or to exclaim’. Defecation did not require to be done in a private room with good ventilation. It could be done anywhere because it meant to purify something.

Accident reporting would have been a very different matter from what it is today. If you heard of an accident in which all the passengers died, that would have been a very bad accident, and not in the way you think. A passenger was someone travelling on foot. It was therefore impossible to have all the passengers on a road being killed simultaneously, unless of course it was genocide.

It was very good in those days to have more villains. In fact, the more villains a particular area had, the better food security it was assured of. This was because, villain was the word used to describe a farm labourer. On the other hand, it would have been disadvantageous to have more pretty people. Nobody wanted to associate with the pretty ones. You may wonder why but a pretty person was a tricky, sly, or cunning character. Guys were also undesirable unlike today when everybody wants to be referred to as one. A guy was a person of grotesque appearance.

In those days, you needed to be nervous in order to attain success. A nervous person was a person of strength and vigour. You needed this to handle success. Success was any outcome, whether good or bad. A nervous person today cannot achieve much, and success is restricted to the very few who come out on top.

The last was also the highest or utmost outcome. It would therefore have been quite appropriate to say, “Last but not least”. It would actually been an ambiguous statement. The last was also the best and so there would have been no point in stating the obvious. This was an intercourse, remember! Let me also have your views.

P.S. I finally have an inmate in my house after looking for one for so long. Hey don’t worry my fellow laymen, am not harbouring an escaped prisoner, I just mean I have new tenant.