Erotolalia


from the ABC set Lovers, Liars and Just Good Friends.

Write love-notes in plain English;
French me when we speak.
Rub me down in Polish -
let's make love in Greek.

A tongue in every orifice,
use the language of your choice;
I know your passion's Latin
from your scarcely passive voice.

Discuss this piece in the abctales forum


Comments

SundaysChild | November 27, 2009 - 16:52

merveilleux, vidunderlig, meraviglioso, wundervoll, geweldig, maravilloso, mirabilis .

artisus | November 28, 2009 - 08:33

Erotolalia, funnily enough google gives zero results if you write it in Greek. I wonder why... A clever poem, well done. (okay I have a suggestion to make, opening lines

We write love-notes in English,
French me when we speak.)

update: lousy suggestion, now I realized you want her to express her multilingual self. Right?

artisus | November 28, 2009 - 08:34

and it's some kind of form right? hmm.

Ewan | November 28, 2009 - 08:41

Yep, that's right.

No, not really.

Well you should know about the Greek! I believe it is a nonce word made up by the sexual behaviourist types of the psychiatric world because they don't want to say 'talking dirty'. (I think). It is etymologically sound though, isn't it?

artisus | November 28, 2009 - 09:26

I'm afraid this word is more romantic and passionate than you expect it to be. Erotolalia is probably delirious love, extreme, let me put it this way, you know Pentecostal beliefs right? they have what they call GLOSSOLALIA (that's how the Greek followers of this Church call it), they talk and talk but it doesn't make sense, something to do with "angels" etc, they think it's a powerful source that rules their mind/spirit when they speak like that. Glosso (Glossa - Tongue in Greek) and Lalia (Speech). Eros rules one's spirit/mind and when this person speaks, he/she speaks in an unintelligible manner.

Ewan | November 28, 2009 - 09:40

You may be interested to know that Wikipedia in English has no entry for erotolalia although it is referenced in another article. Polish Wikipedia does.

Every definition I have found has indicated the meaning I referred to in my comment.

Glossolalia is often referred to as speaking in tongues. Whilst I'm sure Pentecostals (and I have seen them) believe that the language is that of the angels, I'm sure they do not believe that it is meaningless, just that it is unintelligible to "imperfect man".

It could be a minor stroke affecting the speech centres of course. :-)

artisus | November 28, 2009 - 09:50

Ewan, erotolalia is not "talking dirty", I've asked my brother, he told me that this word wouldn't mean anything dirty. Erotolalia is unintelligible to everybody except the man or woman in love with each other. It demands the same strength and frequency of passion. Possessed by Eros/Love.
So the way I saw your poem was

let's make love in Greek

+

Erotolalia

=

Let's make love possessed entirely by Eros, using our private tongue. This certainly doesn't mean the language must be in any way dirty.

artisus | November 28, 2009 - 09:57

Some of the letters the hero wrote in this book could be Erotolalia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_of_the_Day_Before

Ewan | November 28, 2009 - 09:57

Indeed... but the poem is not actually about the use of these words at all, it is a joke about what the psycho-sexologists believe erotolalia to be. It is not as used by them (or me) a Greek word, but a Greek-derived word (as many in medico-psychiatric jargon are).

artisus | November 28, 2009 - 10:29

I see.

threeleafshamrock | December 1, 2009 - 17:51

I just like the poem; I think it's witty and clever...