Words used in a story

[Raceway]

Somewhere, on one of the erotic story websites, there was (maybe still is) a glossary of synonyms and euphemisms for body parts and sexual activities.

The difficulty is maintaining register. The language used by the narrator has to be consistent. Likewise the dialogues.

It's unlikely that American characters would adopt British usage, but American words and phrases slipping into the speech of British characters is relatively common.

And then there's dialect. People living in one region pick up vocabulary that would sound strange when used by people from another region.

It's odd that "Fanny", a genteel name, is now used to mean both front and rear ends. One of my dictionaries traces the usage to Cleland's Fanny Hill. I wouldn't know, but it's an interesting idea.

Partridge's Dictionary of Historical Slang asserts that "dick" is military slang dating from ca. 1850 but doesn't explain why.

The same dictionary states that "pussy" is a variant of "puss" which, in the meaning of female genitals, goes back to the 17th century.

Miaow.

[Raceway]

An example of a blip in register:

In Kingfishers Catch Fire, published in 1953 but set in the 1930s, author Rumer Godden goes further than most authors in describing the absence of toilet facilities in a house in Kashmir.

She mentions the English family (widow with two children) using receptacles in the bathroom, and those receptacles being emptied out by an Indian of the sweeper caste. The sweeper and the other servants are bewildered when the widow insists on a pit being dug at the back of the garden, the waste emptied into it, and lime thrown on top.

The Indian lady who looks after the two children is described as rising early each day to go outside and defecate.

All this is done without use of specific vocabulary. However, there's a passage in which the widow is shocked to see Kashmiri men urinating into a stream. The author uses "piss".

That surprised me. I was even more surprised when, a few pages later on, she describes Kashmiri boys and girls who "make water" in public.

Men piss, children make water.

Horses sweat, men perspire, and ladies glow.