1 Comment

I was thinking about the French take on puer. Reputation is something that clings to one like a bad odor. Someone of ill repute has the odor of their ill-viewed practices upon them. The crude, abbreviated word for sex-worker in French is pute. The women who practiced the oldest profession were considered unclean. When the French want to use the "f-word" they say "putain", a longer form of the word for a prostitute, interestingly.

Expand full comment