Sure, you can spell it with three letters, but just please nobody do it.

"Cum" is the Barry Manilow of words. Musicologists can explain how that elderly closet case's old tunes had compositional and melody elements that made them legitimately catchy.

But that doesn't mean anybody should play them.

@1 Barry Manilow is laughing all the way to the bank, and still playing to full houses, so I think your analogy falls apart. Plus he wrote some awesome jingles. ("I am stuck on Band-Aid, 'cause Band-Aid's stuck on me...")

@2, shut up! I can sing from memory every bit of Manilow's double live album, BUT I DON'T. Any more than I would ever "cum".

Yeah, well, my smarty-pants sources indicate that "cum" comes from "come" as far back as 1650. So there.

The Free Online Dictionary? Please.

Yeah, well, whatever your opinion on the subject, the discussion never get's old, that's for sure.

Anyone seen the new Louis CK movie yet?

IMO cum and come have a slightly different pronunciation. Cum is with a wider mouth (groan, no pun intended) and come with a slightly more rounded mouth (it gets worse).

Depends on the context. Cum is giggly and/or derogatory.

Depends on where you are from and your circles I suppose.

Of course 'cum' is King's English. These people are English, so they'd certainly know proper grammar & spelling:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rftnB33go…

"Cum" is so stupid, and should go away. "Come" is correct, and was popular in 19th century pornography as an alternative to "spend", e.g. "Oh Walter! I am sure I shall come upon the instant!", "Delicious trollop! You have made me spend all over the antimacassar!" and so on.

The plural of "dildo" is "dildos", because we speak English, not Latin.

"Buttocks" is plural, even if some Americans pronounce it funny, like "butt-ox". Most people have a left buttock and a right buttock; together they make "buttocks", two syllables pronounced in most parts of the world run together with that all-purpose schwa vowel which phoneticians usually depict with an inverted e in the middle.

Now you know.

Cum is ridiculous. His link supports "scum", not "cum"; the two are unrelated. The verb "come" in the sexual sense derives from the "arrive" sense, not "scum", and the noun comes from the verb. None of this is at all confusing. In particular, the use of "cum" in recent decades is nothing to do with "the King's English", but is instead peurile and faux-naughty. It's a word out of the worst kind of cheeseball porn of the not-so-remote past.

I'm just going to repost what I wrote earlier:

If you really care about grammar when there's an orgasm involved, you're not doing it right. Can't we let come/cum be equivalent to color/colour and be done with it?

I feel like there's a "the hole is more than the some of its parts" joke in there.

@9 loqui pro temet

Some of you defending the wrong spelling of cum are also defendants of the equally absurd "mouthfeel." When you're wrong, you don't stop halfway.

I find myself wishing we would bring back "die" as a synonym for attaining orgasm. It's such a lovely Chaucerian, Shakespearean usage. And it was current at least as late as the early 19th century, so it hasn't even been out of vogue that long as these things go.

But the point is, wouldn't it be much more DRAMATIC to moan "Aw God, I'm dying!" instead of "Aw God, I'm coming!"?

@4

Yeah, cum dates to 1973. As in, made up by some wag yesterday. The OED says "come" for sexual orgasm dates to 1650. Some narcissist in in the swinging 70s misspelled it cum to be an attention whore. Fail.

The only way this debate could get any more interesting is if someone argued that one of the spellings was misogynistic.

You say 'cum' sounds giggly and puerile; I say 'come' makes me feel like I should have a monocle in.

"Now now, my fellows, I simply must insist that you leave off your most infantile tittering; there's simply nothing for it. We have serious come-related business to which we must attend."

For you seandr.

People who spell cum (in the sexual usage) with an "e" are just like Hitler.

@19 - You can orgasm without a monocle? Now I've heard it all!

Judy Blume uses "come," so I am sticking with it.

"Linguistically and historically cum is shortened from scum. A condom was a "scumbag," hence the derogatory term."

Please, lecture us some more with false etymologies.

Perhaps next you can tell us about Fornication Under the Consent of the King?

At least fuck doesn't sound so cloyingly childish.

23, don't forget the 'ship high in transit' story, either!

actually, "cum" is taken from the Hebrew word that got translated into English as "went" as in the biblical term "he went into her" and while another common transcription was "came" but some idiot grammarian decided that made absolutely no sense to him, all that bullshit about tenses and suddenly jackass is all confused and insists it must be written as come.

Somewhere along the line of then to now they began spelling it different to denote the difference between the interjection came ("come" as the idiot grammarians insisted) and it became the ejaculation "cum"

I think we should ask Seattleblues for her opinion. After all she seems obsessed with men and sex.

and actually 25 and 26, I don't recall Joseph Smith ever saying anything to address gays and lesbians

if I remember correctly though, there are one or two lines where Jesus was talking with his disciples (which doesn't include Punk ass Paul of Tarsus) and using peculiar words that went something along the lines of "we will be known for the way we love each other"

and if I remember right he was referencing himself and his close friends he traveled with, and he evidently meant "love" in some sort of untraditional manner as he said something about the way they love their close friends.

and anybody with a half a brain can understand how pedophilia is blatantly wrong as children are vulnerable, which is why it is also wrong to "groom" them for when they reach the age of a knowledgeable adult.

And personally, because the leaders of the Mormon church were able to understand the mistake they made not allowing those of African descend to hold the priesthood, I thought for shit sure they would recognize their misplaced hatred of homosexuals.

It was that ability to admit and correct that mistake that caused me to honestly believe they would see how wrong and damaging their attitude was, that it would bring them to tears as it did me when I saw the light.

I didn't like like the ignorant comments in that thread, while I do have a sense of humor, I still can't stand people who make a conscious decision to be stupid

@East Coast Douglas: Thank you, that meant a lot.

@25: Mormons! Now there's an interesting group of people.

I've often wondered, are devout Mormons wild and crazy in bed, or are they as boring as they are in every other domain of life?

"Cum" is stupid and gross. When you spell it "cum," you might as well say "arousal has rendered me to stupid to spell." If there were ever homonyms you could differentiate by context, it's "come" and "come." Jesus.

@32 - That's "too stupid to spell" you incorrigible pervert.

Are you grammatically retentive hipsters also gonna insist on "the" being spelled "ye"?

@26: I am America's First Black Gay Jesus. And while I love all my children, some of the more intolerant, repetitive and thick-headed ones are really starting to get on my goddamn* nerves.

* Sorry, dad.

Yeah! And what is up with these degenerate kids and their "aprons"?! I mean, cum on you troglodyte come-rags, clearly it's a NAPRON.

Language isn't proscriptive. If there's need for a word it will stick around. Based on Google search results, I'd say y'all just haters.

Dan, I'm watching the new Louis CK stand up flick, and he's got a great joke about doing an "It's Get Better" video for dumpy male teens.

What @22 said.

What annoys me most is how people are now terribly scared of "me" and have taken to saying, "with John and I." *That* is incorrect and sounds weird and just plain snooty. Ooh, look at *I*, I know that "me" is a bad word.

puddles @39:
Yes, to avoid one false "me", they use 10 false "I"s. And now they do it with "us" and "we" as well...

Now, that was another useful one as well. I used to work somewhere that played talk radio all day, making me an incidental expert on Dr Schlessinger. Had I been at all inclined to alcohol, which I am not, I'm sure I'd have invented some sort of drinking game to coincide with whenever a caller began the first sentence relating to the problem, "Me and my husband..." (For some odd reason, not that men are in general any more grammatical than women [Ms Cute will doubtless insert a reference to Henry Tilney here], the number of men who said, "Me and my wife..." even later on in the call as subject rather than object was much lower.) But it was highly useful. It gave me a heightened instinct to dislike all those callers, and the instinct nearly always proved correct. I suppose one might reasonably argue that one would go far more right than wrong by just issuing a blanket dislike of anybody who consulted Dr S in the first place, but that's another issue.

(Side to Mr Rhone - I am getting a hunch that you actually inclined towards a non-Christian faith and your mother wouldn't have it.)

Two things:

1) If "cum" weren't a word, no one would know what it means. Anyone know what "adsfpoisaduf" means? Nope, cause it's not a word. But we all know what "cum" means.

2) Prescriptivists always lose. Say that "cum" is improper, say that it's not a word, say that no one should use it, and then prepared to be very annoyed as no one pays you any heed.

@ 21: You can orgasm without a monocle? Now I've heard it all!

You can, just not so well.

1. Buttock is singular, buttocks is plural.

2. You're a homophone.

@42

Nobody is saying it's not a word. Nobody is saying it's meaningless. We're saying it's stupid.

Stupid people should say cum. It's a quick way to know whom you're dealing with. Just like idiots shouldn't wear bike helmets. And have elaborate facial hair.

Yes, whom, motherfucker. That's right.

Who...cares....

Mr. Ven @41: I'm inclined to agnosticism and, no, my mother definitely does not share that worldview. She is thoroughly Christian (raised Southern Baptist) but not at all a biblical literalist. She wrote off prejudice of other races and gays as antithetical to God's Love (well before I was born), determined that some preachers were blessed truth-tellers and others were skirt-chasing hucksters, feels a woman's place is anywhere she damn well pleases to be, and felt more and more compelled to attend non-denominational churches as she got older because, as she put it, "anything that old and that rigid is probably foolishness". She regrets not instilling a greater sense of spirituality in me (she half-rightly blames my father, who was a late-convert Jehovah's Witness- make of that what you will), but she praises my intellectual curiosity. She studies the Bible almost daily and is almost embarrassingly proud of her gay son and sees no contradiction in the two whatsoever. As she always puts it to her less enlightened fellow Christians, "What part of God's unconditional love do you not understand?" She turned 61 this year.

@47: Seconded.

Let's not forget the Cum Inn Bar and Grill, always good for a chuckle while driving by.

Me and my fellow finger-waggers are clucking our tongues now.

Look, I don't use the spelling cum
myself--I think it looks juvenile and tacky, and I never get "come" (to arrive), "come" (to orgasm), and "come" (the substance produced by the body at orgasm) mixed up because Context!--but I'll defend your right to choose it if you want. Language grows and changes. We don't have to use new locutions, but we don't get to wish them out of existence, either.

Mr. Ven: oh you have my most heartfelt sympathies at having to listen to the miniscule-brained Dr. Laura all day.

I was trained in descriptive linguistics, not the prescriptive linguistics of "right" and "wrong." I study what people actually write and say.

Cum, meaning ejaculate or to ejaculate, is in common usage. It is used. People use it. They know what it means. Like it or not, it's out there, it exists, and is likely there to stay.

So many cunning linguists in this cumments thread.

cum: verb and noun, by 1973, apparently a variant of the sexual sense of come that originated in pornographic writing, perhaps first in the noun sense. This "experience sexual orgasm" slang meaning of come (perhaps originally come off) is attested from 1650, in "Walking In A Meadowe Greene," in a folio of "loose songs" collected by Bishop Percy.

They lay soe close together, they made me much to wonder;
I knew not which was wether, until I saw her under.
Then off he came, and blusht for shame soe soon that he had endit;
Yet still she lies, and to him cryes, "one more and none can mend it."

As a noun meaning "semen or other product of orgasm" it is on record from the 1920s. The sexual cum seems to have no connection with Latin cum, the preposition meaning "with, together with," which is occasionally used in English in local names of combined parishes or benifices (e.g. Chorlton-cum-Hardy), in popular Latin phrases (e.g. cum laude), or as a combining word to indicate a dual nature or function (e.g. slumber party-cum-bloodbath).

@46: You fail at reading comprehension. Scroll up to the post (or go read Dan's column at http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Savag…) and read it again. Dan's quoted as saying, " 'Cum' is not a word."

@37: Is there a new-new Louis CK movie?!?
Wait, you're talking about "Oh My God," right? I think that's been out for almost a year now.
You got me all excited, and now I have a mild disappointment.

@55

Fucking Dan Savage doesn't count. Jesus, come on.

Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God;

Johnny chapter 13 KJV

that verse is near the beginning of one of the most misunderstood chapters in all the books of the New Testament.

Judas didn't rat Jesus out, Jesus essentially turned himself in. Read John chapter 13 again all you Christians peoples.

as it is in this chapter Christ speaks of Peter as the betrayer, but not the person who told the police where he was, Jesus did that by himself. But he does tell Peter who is to betray him when he asks.

it's also the chapter when Judas leaves to run an errand.

Yet nobody seems to understand who Judas really was, remember that their were actually only four discipiles, who each lived three lives, in different houses under different names, Judas was Simon Peter's son (if I remember correctly)

after Jesus lets the soldiers know where he will be, and the soldiers not understanding that it was Jesus himself who told them, they are taken back in disbelief because it is a little unnerving when you figure out that the stranger who comes to tell you where to find the wanted man, is the man you want

hear are those lines:

3 Judas then, having received a band of men and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, cometh thither with lanterns and torches and weapons.

4 Jesus therefore, knowing all things that should come upon him, went forth, and said unto them, Whom seek ye?

5 They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith unto them, I am he. And Judas also, which betrayed him, stood with them.

6 As soon then as he had said unto them, I am he, they went backward, and fell to the ground.

7 Then asked he them again, Whom seek ye? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth.

8 Jesus answered, I have told you that I am he: if therefore ye seek me, let these go their way:

sort of funny how the editors decided it was Judas who would be the villain in the edited version, changing the original accounts to fit the story they rewrote for public consumption

Danno, who was this idiot editor that didn't understand what he was speaking of?

The second one in the responses Dan posted makes no sense- cum isn't a homophone, it's an alternate spelling of the same word, so the examples make no sense. Aargh. You know- I bet Dan pulled the two *worst* arguments he got to post do he could straw-man us with our weak arguments! He's sneaky like that I think...
(not sure where I fall on the cum/come debate, personally like "come" more, but both might be legitimate spellings)

Oh, how I love the English language, and 53 thank you, thank you very much

Mr Rhone - Not too far off for a blind hunch, then. Your mother sounds interesting, almost Brodieesque.

Ms Cute - It was actually almost like a Britcom after a while, just with unpleasant base content; anyone who has seen Are You Being Served? or Keeping Up Appearances often enough will appreciate that it doesn't take long to know all the tricks.

Mr. Ven @61: Interesting to say the least (in a good way). And I second nocutename's sympathy for your forced engagement with Dr. Laura's hateful broadcast bullshit; I got through about 20 minutes of that show once before I had to turn it off and go get wasted with some of my fellow liberal queer sinners.

Dan, I share your sentiments, but unfortunately you are no more going to get rid of the word "cum" than Rick Santorum is going to banish, well, you know.

As someone who's beginning to write erotica, the important question is: which spelling is less likely to take the reader out of the experience?

I've run across people who prefer the "cum" spelling, but I've yet to run across one who is actively bothered by "come". That spelling just doesn't stick out enough. On the other hand, while those who prefer "cum" can read over that spelling without batting an eye, for those of us who don't, it hits a distinctly sour note, which distracts us from sexual-fantasy-land just enough to be irksome.

As an aside to whoever talked about using the "ye" spelling for "the" -- as cool as it would be to bring back the letter Thorn, I don't see any practical way of doing so.

In Japanese, someone experiencing orgasm says s/he is going, rather than coming.

@53 - hee hee

@27: "actually, "cum" is taken from the Hebrew word that got translated into English as "went" as in the biblical term "he went into her" and while another common transcription was "came" but some idiot grammarian decided that made absolutely no sense to him, all that bullshit about tenses and suddenly jackass is all confused and insists it must be written as come.

Somewhere along the line of then to now they began spelling it different to denote the difference between the interjection came ("come" as the idiot grammarians insisted) and it became the ejaculation "cum""

It would help to actually link to the linguistic record versus repeating something you heard once.

Because that doesn't sound any more plausible than the other false etymologies. (Transliteration excuses will be ignored.)