Martha muses about the secret lives of flowers in this week's podcast. She's been pondering the lexical legacy of Carolus Linnaeus, the great Swedish botanist who nearly 300 years ago was criticized for his fascination with what was a new discovery at the time: The fact that plants reproduce sexually. Prepare to fan yourself as Martha reveals her thoughts about lex and the single flower.
Martha muses about the secret lives of flowers in this week's podcast. She's been pondering the lexical legacy of Carolus Linnaeus, the great Swedish botanist who nearly 300 years ago was criticized for his fascination with what was a new discovery at the time: The fact that plants reproduce sexually. Prepare to fan yourself as Martha reveals her thoughts about lex and the single flower.
Listen here:
[mejsaudio src="https://waywordradio.org/KPBS-podcasts/070801_AWWW_podcast.mp3"]
Download the MP3 here (2.1 MB).
Listening to Martha's latest podcast, "The Secret Lives of Flowers," I was wondering the following: Linneaus was highly criticized for the "sexuality" he found in flowers. How about the sexual connotation of the verb "to deflower"? Does it precede Linnaeus's studies? Is it related to him or his controversial studies in any way?
Piotr, the OED says the word "deflower" has been used in that sense since the 14th century. So yes, it precedes ol' Linnaeus.
Didn't we get the term "deflower" from Latin's défl?r?re?