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To: nopardons
If you have never engaged in sexual congress, even without having a hymen, then you most assuredly were/are a VIRGIN

I am old enough to remember that the first definition of the word, virgin, is as a noun to be used for women only.

It is derived from the Latin word, virginem, meaning "young girl."

I quote from the oldest dictionary I have ready to hand--"Webster's New World Dictionary," second college edition copyright 1984:

1. a) a woman, esp. a young woman who has never had sexual intercourse b) an unmarried girl or woman "
2. less commonly, a man, esp. a youth who has never had sexual intercourse.

And that was in 1984, the earliest dictionary I have handy.

But I do remember that before the 1960s the use of the noun, virgin, to describe a man was highly unusual: calling a man a virgin would have been like calling a man a maiden.

Only since the liberal trashing of our culture with the sexual revolution--

And the ensuing feminization of America, has the first definition of virgin been changed from "woman" to "person." in most or all American dictionaries.

409 posted on 09/20/2005 12:14:26 AM PDT by Age of Reason
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To: Age of Reason
Not to pull rank, or anything like that, but I just happen to have a first edition of Samuel Johnson's dictionary, published in 1755. A quick perusal of same, turned up no entry for the word "virgin". LOL

So, since you like more modern dictionaries, I pulled out a Webster's from 1960 and low and behold, under virgin, the sixth entry/definition reads as follows: "a youth or man who has not had sexual intercourse."

I sit here with WEBSTER'S ENCYCLOPEDIC UNABRIDGED DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, from 1989 opened to the word "virgin" and guess what it says in the sixth entry?

"a boy or man who has never never had sexual intercourse", which uses the word "boy" instead of "youth", but is, for all intents and purposes the same definition, given in the same place, as the one given in the same dictionary printed 29 earlier, before the "Sexual Revolution" was even whispered about, in the USA; let alone burgeoned into full bloom.

You wanna play silly, childish, easily refuted games? YOU CHOSE THE WRONG PERSON TO GO UP AGAINST !

Most words have more than one definition, in every dictionary ever printed. The first definition does NOT preclude the fact that there ARE, indeed, other uses/definition of that very word.

I took Latin for four years, sweetums and still remember a very great deal of it, all these decades later. So don't play play at that, with me, either.

And FYI...the use of the word "virgin", when applied to Mary, did NOT, at the time it was used, mean that her hymen was intact, but rather, that she was not yet gone through the marriage ceremony. Though, in the eyes of the Jews of the time and religiously, since she was betrothed to Joseph and the Kutubah (sp?) had been signed and witnessed by at least one Rabbi, they were wed in fact, though not formally.

And I remember in the 1950s, that the word "virgin" was used to connote those of either sex, who had never engaged in sexual intercourse. If my recollections aren't good enough for you, then how about we go back even further, to well before I was born, to the Broadway season of 1926/27 when the play "THE VIRGIN MAN" was running on in New York? It was about the seduction of a Yalie,by an older woman;BTW.

You aren't old enough to remember what America was like before the 1960s ( probably the 1970s too, for all that); just admit it. Because if you are actually older than we all suppose you are, then you are even sicker than all of us think that you are!

414 posted on 09/20/2005 1:22:40 AM PDT by nopardons
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To: Age of Reason

Virgin


429 posted on 09/20/2005 5:12:19 AM PDT by Conspiracy Guy (Ponce de Leon is coming here to look for the fountain of dumb. DC is his first stop.)
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