Comments on: The Syntax of Cuckoldry http://www.investigations.4-lom.com/2009/05/25/the-syntax-of-cuckoldry/ Failing better at understanding the past Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:50:48 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Gavin Robinson http://www.investigations.4-lom.com/2009/05/25/the-syntax-of-cuckoldry/comment-page-1/#comment-14270 Gavin Robinson Tue, 26 May 2009 10:15:01 +0000 http://www.investigations.4-lom.com/?p=617#comment-14270 On reflection the "had sex with" was unnecessarily complicated and I could have saved myself a lot of confusion by using "fucked" instead. But the fact that I got confused about the direct object of "had sex" suggests that the phrase "had sex with" can be read as a unit which acts as a transitive verb and takes a direct object, which means that "wank to" can as well, which means it does work. My other objection made no sense at all, because "flimp" also requires an indirect object to be explicitly included in order to make a complete sentence. You can tell that that bit was an ill-considered afterthought which had nothing to do with what I was actually writing about. Also I thought of another interpretation of "cuckold" which would have carried more weight in early-modern England than it does now. To cuckold a man was to make him into a cuckold. That puts the wife even further out of sight, even though she's still a necessary part of becoming a cuckold. On reflection the “had sex with” was unnecessarily complicated and I could have saved myself a lot of confusion by using “fucked” instead. But the fact that I got confused about the direct object of “had sex” suggests that the phrase “had sex with” can be read as a unit which acts as a transitive verb and takes a direct object, which means that “wank to” can as well, which means it does work. My other objection made no sense at all, because “flimp” also requires an indirect object to be explicitly included in order to make a complete sentence. You can tell that that bit was an ill-considered afterthought which had nothing to do with what I was actually writing about.

Also I thought of another interpretation of “cuckold” which would have carried more weight in early-modern England than it does now. To cuckold a man was to make him into a cuckold. That puts the wife even further out of sight, even though she’s still a necessary part of becoming a cuckold.

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