Nick - no one has said that "cum" isn't a word. We're talking about what word we prefer to use. We've also not said anything about one word being better. I think there's a general consensus that either is fine, but we all have our quirky little preferences.

Can we drop the whole ambiguity discussion? Or if you're really interested in it, perhaps move it to another thread?

That conversation about incentives to vote other reviewers down is still echoing in my mind and I can totally see this conversation going down that same inane, needlessly complicated route (which is a shame because I think what Backseat Boohoo was saying about language and meaning is pretty darned cool). less

Using the same example, if somebody wants me to go somewhere, they aren't going to text, "Come FOR me." It makes no sense, and it's not enough information. Where am I going? Why am I doing it for you? Unless we've had a previous conversation where I said I didn't want to go somewhere they wanted to go, and they did it as a sort of plea.

Back to Austin, there are tons of ways that statement could face infelicities (see the "somewhere they wanted to go" example), but that's really not the matter at hand. The matter is that "cum" and "come" are essentially the same word, this poll is just figuring out how people prefer to spell it. "Come" and "cum," spoken, mean the same thing when they are spoken because there's no spelling in speaking unless you're verbally spelling something out.

So it wouldn't matter if you personally spelled it "cum" or "come" in your head during speaking, because given the situation, people are going to hear it and know what you want. Really, there's a huge difference between coming to someone's house and coming during sex, and like I said, if we're mid-fuck and I say "come" and you think I want you to walk across the room, I don't want your stupid ass. How you want to spell it is a personal preference.

There are ambiguities in language, of course; I personally believe every person has their own individual vernacular, which is what leads to those ambiguities. But the point I'm trying to make is that the difference between come (sexual) and come (movement) doesn't leave much room for ambiguity. less

I'm getting more and more confused lol

Here are the things confusing to me. If someone can explain this to me, please do. So Epiphora said "...ambiguity is not ambiguous as long as context is known." And then Lara said "Meaning can be derived from context." And then you gave examples of how context can fix which sense of "come" to lock on to. You also hinted at the ambiguity being a "rare occurrence."

So, I'm confused. Do you all agree that it's ambiguous? Epiphora, I agree that when each party knows the context of utterance then there isn't going to be ambiguity. But, the examples I described explicitly noted the lack of information to pinpoint a context. Is your view that the context is always known? And Lara, I agree that meaning can be derived from context. Backseat Boohoo, I think your point was similar, with your marriage and "too ftupid for me to want to fuck..." examples. Did I say something inconsistent with these things, or that implied that I thought otherwise?

As far as I know, no lexically ambiguous word is KNOWN in EVERY context. And of course there's USUALLY enough information to tell which sense of a word to latch on to, such as in Backseat's "too stupid for me to want to fuck you" example. But there isn't ALWAYS such information: there are SOME cases in which there isn't enough information for one to KNOW which context the word was uttered in. Suppose you get a text message from an unknown number completely out of the blue which reads: "come for me". How are you going to know what sense of "come" the person has in mind. Of course there is SOMETIMES more information involved to let you know, and I agree that there usually is (I even expressed those very same sentiments in the second post of mine on here). But there's isn't always.

So, is this a "rare occurrence"? Yes, sure it is. But that's true of lots of ambiguous words. How often are you confused about whether or not someone means river bank or money bank when they say "bank"? I can't think of a single time I've been confused about it. But this is paradigmatic case of ambiguity. Moreover though, for a word to count as ambiguous there don't EVER have to be actual cases where a person is confused about which sense of a word to lock on to.

Maybe you all have the opinion that one (almost) always knows the context, so the reason I gave for preferring "cum" over "come" isn't a good one. I dunno, maybe that's right. I think I implied that it was a minor point though, and someone agreed with me that she's at times found "come" misleading.

Does everyone agree with that, or am I just like completely missing something? less

I'm getting more and more confused lol

Here are the things confusing to me. If someone can explain this to me, please do. So Epiphora said "...ambiguity is not ambiguous as long as context is known." And then Lara said "Meaning can be derived from context." And then you gave examples of how context can fix which sense of "come" to lock on to. You also hinted at the ambiguity being a "rare occurrence."

So, I'm confused. Do you all agree that it's ambiguous? Epiphora, I agree that when each party knows the context of utterance then there isn't going to be ambiguity. But, the examples I described explicitly noted the lack of information to pinpoint a context. Is your view that the context is always known? And Lara, I agree that meaning can be derived from context. Backseat Boohoo, I think your point was similar, with your marriage and "too ftupid for me to want to fuck..." examples. Did I say something inconsistent with these things, or that implied that I thought otherwise?

As far as I know, no lexically ambiguous word is KNOWN in EVERY context. And of course there's USUALLY enough information to tell which sense of a word to latch on to, such as in Backseat's "too stupid for me to want to fuck you" example. But there isn't ALWAYS such information: there are SOME cases in which there isn't enough information for one to KNOW which context the word was uttered in. Suppose you get a text message from an unknown number completely out of the blue which reads: "come for me". How are you going to know what sense of "come" the person has in mind. Of course there is SOMETIMES more information involved to let you know, and I agree that there usually is (I even expressed those very same sentiments in the second post of mine on here). But there's isn't always.

So, is this a "rare occurrence"? Yes, sure it is. But that's true of lots of ambiguous words. How often are you confused about whether or not someone means river bank or money bank when they say "bank"? I can't think of a single time I've been confused about it. But this is paradigmatic case of ambiguity. Moreover though, for a word to count as ambiguous there don't EVER have to be actual cases where a person is confused about which sense of a word to lock on to.

Maybe you all have the opinion that one (almost) always knows the context, so the reason I gave for preferring "cum" over "come" isn't a good one. I dunno, maybe that's right. I think I implied that it was a minor point though, and someone agreed with me that she's at times found "come" misleading.

Does everyone agree with that, or am I just like completely missing something? less

Using the same example, if somebody wants me to go somewhere, they aren't going to text, "Come FOR me." It makes no sense, and it's not enough information. Where am I going? Why am I doing it for you? Unless we've had a previous conversation where I said I didn't want to go somewhere they wanted to go, and they did it as a sort of plea.

Back to Austin, there are tons of ways that statement could face infelicities (see the "somewhere they wanted to go" example), but that's really not the matter at hand. The matter is that "cum" and "come" are essentially the same word, this poll is just figuring out how people prefer to spell it. "Come" and "cum," spoken, mean the same thing when they are spoken because there's no spelling in speaking unless you're verbally spelling something out.

So it wouldn't matter if you personally spelled it "cum" or "come" in your head during speaking, because given the situation, people are going to hear it and know what you want. Really, there's a huge difference between coming to someone's house and coming during sex, and like I said, if we're mid-fuck and I say "come" and you think I want you to walk across the room, I don't want your stupid ass. How you want to spell it is a personal preference.

There are ambiguities in language, of course; I personally believe every person has their own individual vernacular, which is what leads to those ambiguities. But the point I'm trying to make is that the difference between come (sexual) and come (movement) doesn't leave much room for ambiguity. less

Wow. So basically you're getting hung up YET AGAIN on something that either doesn't exist or is extremely rare, and all you want from us is for us to agree with you that yes, at some point in life, the word "come" could be ambiguous. Good grief. Is this fun for you? less

I'm not hung up at all, I've enjoyed this thread lol

And I didn't say it doesn't exist. Just that ambiguous words don't have to actually produce confusion to still be considered ambiguous. Although I think it does cause some confusion, largely since I've experienced such confusion. But yeah, the examples I gave are really bad apparently, so maybe I should have thought of a better one before saying anything.

I don't really understand what I should have done instead of posting about what I meant and what seemed to be the confusion, though lol. Should I just ignore what's been said? I'm interested, enjoy such convos, writing this sort of stuff, and felt that someone disagreed with me about something due to either unclarity on my part or the other person's misreading (I do both extremely often, and I don't think anyone should feel bad if they do either). Are the posts too long? I don't know, is there a word limit? I just don't get how legitimate interest and trying to cease being confused by continuing discussion - especially without being "hung up" or bothered in any way - could be a bad thing. And it's acceptable to get bothered and upset about someone's posts because of misreading the person or not trying to clarify what the person said by asking, and to then criticize the person? How is it that I'm the one getting jumped for this lol? I very sincerely and honestly do not have any idea wtf I did that merits treating me as an annoyance. less

I think I agree with some things you say. Not sure what you mean at some parts.

Is your view that there's no "room" for confusion? Or that there's little room? I agree with the latter. I think I've been saying that the whole time, though. So are you agreeing with me , or am I misreading what you've said, or am I unaware of something mistaken I said? I just don't get what we (seem to be) disagreeing about. If someone could quote something I said that was confusing/misleading/w rong/mistaken or anything of the sort, that would help me a bunch. less

Excellent visual with basement dude!

I'm musing about what it is that bothers me about "cum" as a word. It's like there are gradations of vulgarity and "cum" slips into that grey area where the vulgar becomes super intense and/or disturbing à la basement dude in yahoo chat.

Maybe the word is soooo descriptive and soooo intimate for me that it only works in certain contexts. If some random online guy starts telling me how he is going to "cum so hard," I tend to think he's seriously lame and kind of lazy for not using a better description. If a lover who is ordinarily really uptight says the same thing, that's kind of hot for all of it's vulgarity. less

I'm really not a big fan of "cum". It takes me back to middle school days of little boys saying vulgar words to try and gross out the girls. If I'm talking about the noun to my boyfriend I'll probably just say 'sperm'.

Funny side note: when I text my boyfriend using T9 (the one where it puts the word in for you) and I want to say, "When are you gonna come home?" "Home" is replaced with "good", and I laugh EVERY time. less

I use the word cum or orgasm in writing . I think I would kinda freak out, if during sex, my partner asked; "did you orgasm? but then, he better not ask using either term.
Anyway, cum is used more properly referring to the male ejaculate, as on condom wrappers. But most people relate cum to orgasm of either sex now. Language changes...... less

Wow there's so many other words to use when it comes to orgasm I don't care. I squick at the word "cum" so I don't use it in textual conversation, nor do I use it when writing erotica. Normally it's "come". The topic is the spelling I believe and which you prefer.

No biggie each to their own. It's interesting.

What about all the other words you have heard used like cheese (eeewww), climax, ejaculate, jism, get off, shoot a load, squirt.

What about the absurd terms ... fanny bomb, spew, number three, pop one's cookie, cream one's pants, make the chimney smoke.

Heh. less