(no subject)

[weaktwos]

I'm listening to some Folk guitar player. His name is Ron Sexsmith. I've never heard of him before. I would think that a name like that would make him more popular.

I wonder, however, how his last name evolved? Were his parents Norwegian, and his family was at Ellis Island, introducing their last name as "Sexsmutsen, or something like that, and the clerk changed it to Sexsmith?

Comments

[yansa.livejournal.com]

Actually, in Elizabethan England, every village had its tailor, cobbler, fishmonger, Anglican pastor, barkeep, blacksmith, and sexsmith. The sexsmiths made pornographic objects out of iron and sold them at the market alongside the other merchants.

The word "sexsmith" comes from Indo-European shk'egrPt*vgrom s'ykhmkhipta, the same word that's the root of "ketchup", "narwhal", "backgammon", "parachute", "Ethernet", and, of course, "zygote" -- the latter word being a distant cousin of "sexsmith".

*nods*

--yansa!

[weaktwos.livejournal.com]

Yes, yansa. That was a very astute historical analysis of sexsmithing. Those old iron sex toys were tricky during the winter months. And the risk for overheating was high.