Fun_People Archive
23 Dec
Lingua Franca

Date: Fri, 23 Dec 94 18:24:23 PST
To: Fun_People
Subject: Lingua Franca

[Reproduced solely for the purposes of scholarly study ... -psl]

From: The New Yorker Magazine 12/26/94 1/2/95 (The Talk of the Town)

Lingua Franca

    The forced resignation of Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, following
her suggestion that masturbation was "part of something that perhaps should
be taught," is a small gift for lovers of what H. L. Mencken called the
American Language.  It has inspired a new phrase in an area that has always
been blessed for its vigor and inventiveness.  Around Washington, the new
term for the act of loving thyself as well as (if not better than) thy
neighbor is, reliable sources say, "firing the Surgeon General."

© 1994 Peter Langston