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If you were to spend a substantial amount of time around my family — and heaven help you if you did — you’d probably hear the word “gommy” tossed around, mostly by my mother. It’s a word we use to mean messy or weird or overly complicated. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone else use this word, although it does exist in popular culture. So I’m not sure anyone else would understand exactly what my mother means by it.
All families have their own ways of communicating. Some even go so far as to make up their own words and phrases that would make no sense to outsiders. And Paul Dickson has a new book out — Family Words: A Dictionary of the Secret Language of Families — in which he catalogues many of these quirky idioms and words.
Some of them are downright hilarious:
GRISWOLD, v. — to rush through a museum or other attraction.
(e.g.: “I’m really hungry, so let’s griswold that museum and then eat dinner.”)
Does your family have any secret words?
On the heels of the story about the British woman who went 40 days without beauty products or bathing comes this story about a new study that says breast cancer could be linked to deodorant usage — particularly those deodorants/antiperspirants that rely heavily on aluminum (the study says the average antiperspirant is 90 percent aluminum).
Antiperspirant is mainly made up from aluminium salts which have long been associated with cancer, as well as other human disease and the daily application of aluminium-based antiperspirants could possibly result in the presence of aluminium in the tissue of the underarm and surrounding areas.
I’m always skeptical of these short, soundbyte-ready studies, but I’m also skeptical that every FDA-approved chemical we routinely apply to our bodies is truly safe in the long run. So, it doesn’t hurt to ask: Am I doing what’s best for my body? Of course, with all these inconclusive studies, it’s hard to tell. But if you’re feeling skittish, there are alternatives.
Imagine it: Twenty-four hours without brushing your teeth, taking a shower, or washing your face. Then forty-eight hours. Then five days. Then ten. By that time, your teeth are probably coated in a gritty film, your armpits itchy, your face slick with oil, and your hair is (depending on the texture and presence of natural oils, of course) may be greasy and flat. You’re covered in dirt and soot from the time you spend outside every day. You probably don’t smell too great, either, from the bacteria swimming in the caked-up oils on your skin.
You’re probably grumpy, too, because you feel gross and smelly and anti-social.
Imagine, then, going forty days without grooming.
Sound impossible? Or at least very icky? Well, there’s no need to try it (like you were leaping out of your chair to do so anyway), because a British woman has already performed this grand experiment.
Here’s a question for your Friday consideration: Should science work toward modifying males so that they can give birth?
It’s actually not as ridiculous as it sounds; PZ Myers over at Pharyngula has a nice post up about some of the particulars of such a concept:
Zygotes are aggressive little parasites that will implant just about anywhere in the coelom — it’s why ectopic pregnancies are a serious problem — so all we need to do there is culture a bit of highly vascularized tissue in the male abdomen that will serve as a secure home for a few months. We’ll have to play some endocrine games, too, which may effect his love life but will also prepare him to lactate post-partum. There’s the minor anatomical problem that the vagina is a unique tissue, and no, the urethra is not homologous or analogous (fortunately; we wouldn’t want to have to push an 8 pound baby through the penis, even if female hyenas can manage it) — but that’s what c-sections are for. Given money, time, and a few weird volunteers, it could be done.
I probably have more radical views on gender and “nature” than the average person (in other words, I think gender is a social construct and “nature” is a vague term thrown around to help reinforce strict gender roles), but I don’t actually see a downside to science giving men the option to get pregnant and have babies. It’s the getting there that will be shaky and ethically iffy (that whole finding human volunteers thing could pose a real obstacle), but it’s possible that such a revolutionary event could happen in the next few decades.
Some shocking news today from the AP: Older people are getting busier than you probably imagined.
Well, that’s really only shocking if you think that older people have the sex drive of corpses. 
The federally funded study, done by respected scientists and published in today’s New England Journal of Medicine, overturns some stereotypical notions that physical pleasure is just a young person’s game.
“Most people assume that people stop doing it after some vague age,” said researcher Edward Laumann of the University of Chicago.
However, more than half of those aged 57 to 75 said they gave or received oral sex, as did about a third of 75- to 85-year-olds.
Maybe this will put to bed — pun intended — the notion that older people are, by nature, chaste.
