[UnklGene]

Dear Santa:
May I have a "merkin" for Christmas?

[Charles Henrickson]

Foreword by John "F!" Kerry.

[Servant of the 9]

Is that what that song is about?

"I'm proud to be A Merkin, where at least I know I'm free."

So9

[IronJack]

I thought the desire to look up "naughty" words in the dictionary stopped at around sixth grade. Nevertheless, during a grad level linguistics course, a great deal of the discussion revolved around the etymological ancestry of various ... anatomical and biological slang.

[Ichneumon]

"But I settled on sex -- because sex is something that almost everyone is interested in"

Not me, that's why I didn't read the article and didn't post to the thread.

[Cicero]

Mer"kin\, n. Originally, a wig; afterwards, a mop for cleaning cannon.

--American Heritage Dictionary

[Yeti]

and also because sex has been around for hundreds of years, and so it has an extensive history that I could research

Yes! Sex, in my opinion, ia a far more significant New World contribution to Western Civilization than tobacco, or even pototatoes.

[Petronski]

TRIVIA ALERT:

The 'merkin' is the source of the name of the President in Dr. Strangelove: Pres. Merkin Muffley

[Jael Perdue]

http://io.uwinnipeg.ca/~morton/lovers_tongue.htm