Wednesday 6 February 2013

Pudibund


 is a lovely word. It means bashful or modest, but it's so much fun to say aloud. "Don't be pudibund, old boy, you've done splendidly." There's even an extra word pudibundery which means prudery, so Ezra Pound could observe that:

Darwin, truckling to the religiose pudibundery of his race, has almost wholly neglected the actual facts of sex.

Happens to us all.

The bund bit at the end of pudibund is a suffix forming verbal adjectives (so saith the OED) and is the same thing you get in moribund or about to die.

The pudi bit comes from the Latin pudere meaning to be ashamed. So if you're impudent, you are without shame (and incapable of pudibundery).

Now, propaganda are things to be propagated, and agenda are things to get done, and Amanda is a girl to love (literally) and Miranda is a girl to marvel at (literally), and by this pattern and this exact etymology your pudenda are those bits of you of which you should be horribly ashamed, in a fit of pudibundery.

Got to love her.

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