A kiss is not always just a kiss
by
Howard Richler
Kissing and bussing differ both in this
We busse our wantons, but our wives we kisse.
(Robert Herrick in his 1648 collection of poetry Hesperides)
Lest you be misguided into thinking
from the above ditty that it was 17th century Englishmen who
established the pedigree of kisses, be informed that the ancient Romans had
formulated a hierarchy millennia before.
At the less lascivious end of the spectrum
we find the osculum, (literally,
little mouth) which rererred to an affectionate peck on the cheek. Romantic
kissing, however, fell into two categories. The basium was the direct lip-to-lip kiss between lovers and this Latin
word is the source of the cognate words in most European languages – bacio,
(Italian); buss, (English); beso, (Spanish) and baiser, (French). The basium was
the discussable[User1] kiss [User2] and the one
memorialized in the polite poetry of the time. The other kiss, the suavium, although often literally translated as "little kiss,"
was really the more passionate labio-lingual kiss that the French inherited
from the Romans and that we, therefore, call the French kiss. It was always a
prelude and an invitation to further interaction among intimates.
The word “kiss” dates from around the year 1000 and comes from the Old
English cyssan which does not appear
to have cognates in any other language.
By the time of Chaucer, one could also “ba” as
seen in Canterbury Tales (1386),
“Come ner, my spouse; let me ba thy cheke.” Both “smack” and “buss” are first recorded in
1570, “smick” in 1572 and the Latinate duo of “suaviate” and “osculate” surface
in 1643 and 1656 respectively.
“Smooch” as a noun and as a verb is only recorded
in the 20th century; however, in
1611 in his French/English Dictionary,
Randle Cotgrave defines a baiseur as
“a kisser, smoutcher, smacker.”
In The Lover’s Tongue, Mark
Morton informs us that hugging often accompanies kissing, “but hugging was not
possible until the mid-16th century, when hug emerged in the English
language. Prior to that lovers could only clip, halse {or halch}, lap or embrace.”
The oldest of these “hug” verbs is “clip” and one was able to “clip” at
least fifty years before “kiss” entered the language. The word also surfaces in
Canterbury Tales: “He kisseth hire
and clyipeth hire ful ofte.” Morton could have included “cuddling” as one of
the pre-hugging possibilities, as the verb
“cuddle” arrives in the language around 1520. The OED describes “cuddle” as “a
dialectical or nursery word of uncertain derivation.” Only towards the end of
the 17th century could the English “caress,” “snuggle” and “fondle”;
the last two of these being adaptations of the adjectives “snug” and “fond.”
Given that
the ineffable f-word [User3] has been taboo for most of its 500-year history, you
might wonder how gentrified folk referred to this activity without resorting to
protracted euphemistic phraseology such as “go to bed with.” Surprisingly, the word “conversation”
referred to sexual activity in the early part of the 16th century
and only took on the sense of “chatting” towards the end of the century. At
this juncture, one had to specify “conjugal conversation” if either hanky or panky [User4] was occurring.
Conversely, “intercourse” originally referred to communication and
commerce in the 15th century and is only used to mean sexual
activity from 1798.
There were, however, many terms that preceded the f-word. The oldest of
these are “sard”[User5] and “wifthing” recorded around the year 1000.
“Wifthing” is actually a compound of “wife” and “thing” but don’t be deluded
into thinking that it is only sanctioning marital relations as the sense at the
time of “wife” was merely “woman.” The
14th century sees two new additional terms to express full carnal embrace
– “jape” in 1362 and “swive.” oft employed in Canterbury
Tales two decades later. For
example, in The Reeve’s Tale, a student crows, “As I have thries {thrice} in this
shorte nyght swyved the milleres doghter bolt upright.” The verb “occupy” was
also used to imply sexual activity in
the late 15th century and the term was only purged of any carnal
sense towards the end of the 19th century.
One manner that the English language employs to euphemize bawdy terms
is to Latinize them. Hence the early 14th
century is graced by the term “fornication” which is derived from
the noun fornix, “arch, vaulted
chamber” because Roman brothels were often established in vaults. Surprisingly, it took until the middle of the 16th
century for the verb “fornicate” to develop from the noun “fornication.”
“Copulation” is first recorded toward the end of the 15th century
and the verb “copulate” only follows more than
a century later.
Despite a long and varied
history of etymological development, may all lovers be well occupied
in deep, romantic conversation this Valentine’s
Day.
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