The usage of "distaff"

[Chicken Sandwich]

His take on the shows and the entire comic book subculture – while filled with stereotypes so clichéd that it made so-called computer nerds seem positively metropolitan – was nothing new: comic book people are geeky, dweeby, sexless onanists with no sense of the distaff and poor excuses for lives; Trekkies without the requiste hard-on for Shatner.

According to this site ( distaff - definition of distaff by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia. ), distaff can mean "woman considered as a group". But is this what the author meant? To me it seems that he could have easily said "with no sense of woman..", without changing the meaning.

What does the dictionary mean by "as a group"? Does this mean woman in general?

 

[SoothingDave]

Yes. They have no women and have no sense of how to deal with them.

This is an archaic term, not in common use. I had to look it up.

The author could have phrased it some other way, but then he wouldn't get to show off the old word he knows.

 

[JohnParis]

According to this site ( distaff - definition of distaff by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia. ), distaff can mean "woman considered as a group". But is this what the author meant? To me it seems that he could have easily said "with no sense of woman..", without changing the meaning.

What does the dictionary mean by "as a group"? Does this mean woman in general?

Chicken - who wrote that drivel (containing two dashes, one colon and a semi-colon in one sentence)?
I had to look up BOTH 'onanists' and 'distaff'.
Imagine, two fifty-cent words in one sentence. Give the man a cigar. :twisted:

 

[Chicken Sandwich]

Chicken - who wrote that drivel (containing two dashes, one colon and a semi-colon in one sentence)?
I had to look up BOTH 'onanists' and 'distaff'.
Imagine, two fifty-cent words in one sentence. Give the man a cigar. :twisted:

Kevin Smith wrote that drivel. I've noticed that he uses a lot of weird words that I have never encountered. I think he does that, as mentioned above, to show that he knows a few words that no one really uses in everyday English.

I had to look up onanist too. Never heard of it, then again, I'm not a native speaker, jus a dedicated learner.

 

[TheParser]

I had to look up onanist too. Never heard of it, then again, I'm not a native speaker, jus a dedicated learner.

***** NOT A TEACHER *****


In all fairness to the author, that word is rather elegant. The other word for that

activity is much too explicit and clinical. Not at all suitable for a family-friendly

website such as this. (I hear some authors used to write certain words in Latin, for

the English would have made English readers blush.)

 

[Chicken Sandwich]

***** NOT A TEACHER *****


In all fairness to the author, that word is rather elegant. The other word for that

activity is much too explicit and clinical. Not at all suitable for a family-friendly

website such as this. (I hear some authors used to write certain words in Latin, for

the English would have made English readers blush.)

Really? I don't think it's explicit at all. The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English does not indicate that it's impolite. The phrasal verb that starts with the letter "j" on the other hand is considered impolite.

 

[JohnParis]

I agree, Parser.
Perhaps it's my clinical background that doesn't make me flinch at the meaning of onanist, but by using words that few people know, the only thing the author accomplishes is to make the reader look up the word in a dictionary. And when he does, what does he see? The clinical term.

 

[Barb_D]

What kills me is that there are some people who think this passes for good writing!

 

[BobK]

:up: The guy's obviously swallowed a dictionary.

I've only ever met 'onanist' in the context of a jokey name for a parrot, based on a quotation (King James bible?) about Onan who 'spilled his seed on the ground'. ;-)

And I've only met 'distaff' in the context of genealogy: 'Edgar was related to Jacob on the distaff side'.

b

 

[TheParser]

Really? I don't think it's explicit at all. The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English does not indicate that it's impolite. The phrasal verb that starts with the letter "j" on the other hand is considered impolite.

***** NOT A TEACHER *****


(1) I apologize for not writing clearly. (As they say, writing one good sentence is

a very difficult task.)

(2) I meant:

Using the "O" word is better than using the "M" word. Of course, the "J" word

is definitely out of the question.

Now that's a clear sentence!

 

[emsr2d2]

Just in case, I'm going to refer to the "M" word as the "M" word for the purposes of this question:

Are we really saying that the "M" word would be considered rude by members of this forum?

 

[5jj]

Not by me.

 

[emsr2d2]

Not by me.

That's good to know. I was starting to wonder what was going on.

 

[birdeen's call]

***** NOT A TEACHER *****


In all fairness to the author, that word is rather elegant. The other word for that

activity is much too explicit and clinical. Not at all suitable for a family-friendly

website such as this. (I hear some authors used to write certain words in Latin, for

the English would have made English readers blush.)

That's an interesting discussion. I would have assumed "onanist" was a regular word. It is in my language (although it's used by angry columnists mostly).

I apologize to anybody who might be offended be the following part of my post. I'm going to use the full form of the "M-word" because I want to ask about two "M-words".

If "onanist" is not a word native speakers use, what would they use instead if they didn't want to use filthy language? I know the verb "masturbate" is in common use, but I had to take a peek into the dictionary to see whether the word "masturbator" existed. I have never seen or heard this word. Is it more common than "onanist"?

Also, isn't an onanist necessarily a male?

 

[Barb_D]

BC, you will find people who have lived full and rich lives without ever once seeing that word.

 

[birdeen's call]

BC, you will find people who have lived full and rich lives without ever once seeing that word.

I'm sure I will and have. I'd still like to know which of the words I've mentioned is more common and by how far, though.

 

[Barb_D]

If a person has cause to discuss this activity, and this person is not in the medical professional, it will be one of the slang words. I can't recall ever having a discussion involving this, however.

 

[5jj]

In 65 years, I don't think I have ever used a noun, crude or formal, or heard one used. If it has ever been necessary to talk about the subject, we have spoken of a person who masturbates (or one of the slang words).

I have not infrequently heard the word 'w....er', but as a derogatory term for a person who is disliked in some way.

 

[emsr2d2]

I also had to look up the word "onanist" having never heard or read it before. As the others have said, if the subject were to come up (no pun intended ;-)), I would expect to hear or use "masturbate" or "masturbator" although the latter is certainly less common.

In answer to birdeen's question about it being necessarily male, I can't find a definition which specifies a gender. I imagine that it is used to refer to a male the majority of the time, but if "onanism" simply means "masturbation" without specifying a method or a particular body part, then there is no reason why it shouldn't apply to a female too.

 

[BobK]

In support of my assertion, In BNC's 100 million word database 'distaff' occurs 11 times - nearly all in a genealogical context, with 7 cases of 'distaff side':

1 DISTAFF SIDE 7
2 DISTAFF DAY 2
3 DISTAFF POWER 1
4 DISTAFF FAMILIES 1

In COCA it occurs just over twice as often, but as the database is more than four times as big that suggests it's less common in America. 'Distaff side' is still the most common collocation (though by a less emphatic margin).

(See more here: British National Corpus (BYU-BNC).)

b