I’m uncertain how I got the dildo stuck in my head, but I can assure you it didn’t enter through one of my ears. Heck, I know better to shove a cotton-tipped swab in there let alone a big honking dildo.
Blame the Oxford English Dictionary. That’s up in my head, too, and it’s way, way bigger (135 pounds) than your common love toy.
See, I’m a word guy. Words fascinate me. I enjoy knowing where they came from and when they reached the point of critical mass and someone decided, well, enough people are using this word so we ought to explain it and stick it in a dictionary.
The word “dictionary,” by the way, dates back to 1480 and means, “A book which explains or translates, usually in alphabetical order, the words of a language or languages, giving for each word its typical spelling and usage.”
A little verbose, isn’t it? But who can blame the dictionary for being, well, wordy.
Here’s another quibble: I contend if dictionary publishers were serious about their mission they’d call dictionaries, “definitionaries.”
But I still love them in spite of their occasional incompetence.
I mean, who am I to cast stones in that realm?
Anyhoo, I keep two of ‘em on my desk, a 150,000-word hard cover American Heritage, and a duct-taped paperback (75,000) I’ve held in my hands nearly once a week since 1979.
Guess what: They’re still not enough.
I need more. Bigger. Enhanced girth.
And, yes, we’re still talking dictionaries. We’ll get to the dildos.
But for true word sleuths, there’s nothing like the OED. It has the definitions of 600,000 words. My ardor for it is so all encompassing that one of my failed years — and I’m about oh-fer-25 in that regard — was devoted to trying to create a word and whoring it out so compellingly that word would earn OED recognition in record time.
At the time I was seized by the idea that the only thing easier than writing one book a year was writing just one word. And, yes, to emphasize my fecklessness, I even wrote a book proposal about my word: “Zeitgust! How Words Become Words & a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Dash at Dictionary Recognition.”
“Zeitgust! A contrived and deliberate act of trying to mass manipulate popular culture to an individual whim.”
So how come I have dildo on the brain?
Blame Jason Priestly. I saw the old “Beverly Hills 90210” actor making the rounds and instantly thought, “Dildo!”
Not prick, cock, pecker, wang, dork or dong.
Just “Dildo!”
Priestly starred in a well-crafted SNL skit, “The Life and Times of Johnny Hildo” from ’92 (cast: Hartman, Rock, Spade, Myers. Wow). The premise was Priestly was Hildo who in three acts is ridiculed for having a name that sounds like dildo.
Classmates, perspective dates, professors all thoughtlessly call Hildo, Dildo until he blows up: “It’s Hildo, damnit! Hildo!”
The shot cuts to a mock newspaper picture of Hildo under the headline, “Crazed Dildo Kills 7!”
He’s then shown being marched into a cell where he’s greeted by cell mate Kevin Nealon who extends a hand in friendship: “Hi Hildo. Nice to meet you.” Hildo is floored. Did someone just call him Hildo?”
“That’s your name, isn’t it,” says Nealon, who completes the introduction by saying, “My name is Larry …”
“Larry Bagina.”
And that’s why the sight of Priestly sent me scrambling for the on-line dictionary.
I had to know: how old is dildo?
Dildo is 421 years old!
This is bound to sound sexist, but I’d have thought the women folk in 1598 would have been too busy cooking for the men, cleaning for men and laying down on the straw for the 0.08 seconds it took to satisfy men. Too busy to enjoy what I’ve heard referred to as the external hard drive.
The idea that anyone back then had time for recreational sex while I guess there were still one or two dinosaurs roaming the neighborhood seems preposterous.
Who knew sex was fun before the 1960s?
Oh, and did you know the band Steely Dan took its name from a strap-on dildo in the William S. Burroughs book “Naked Lunch?”
Sorry for all these silly diversions. But once I get going about word origins I’m apt to get off on tangents.
And what story about dildos would be complete without a little getting off?
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