tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5917209194139901002.post8097326259179118681..comments2010-05-22T14:16:08.056-04:00Jake Fournierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01172087547316331143noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5917209194139901002.post-39983147481182972792010-05-22T14:16:08.039-04:002010-05-22T14:16:08.039-04:00&quot;That&#39;s one of the reasons aesthetic criticism is a crime, jewel thievery, taking only the things that glitter out of the poet&#39;s dark mud...&quot;<br /><br />Yes yes yes. <br />I&#39;m so glad you finally did this! <br />Yes!Elizahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18040693175311870106noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5917209194139901002.post-75237607991425642272010-05-22T09:31:58.408-04:002010-05-22T09:31:58.408-04:00I know you just wanted to use the word &#39;ejaculation&#39;, but in that poem we&#39;re more precisely talking of something else. The &#39;o&#39;s syntactically resemble interjections, though strictly speaking they are clitics. More than that, &#39;o&#39;s date from the time when the English language utilised inflexion in any substantial capacity, i.e. primarily Old English. Whilst there was no vocative case in English in a morphological sense, there was in Latin. &#39;o&#39; is thus possibly a grammatical &#39;borrowing&#39; to some extent. &#39;luna&#39;, the vocative form of &#39;moon&#39; in Latin, is generally translated &#39;o&#39; moon&#39;. Curiously, the vocative and nominative forms in the singular are often the same, while &#39;o&#39; and the nominative are typically used to express the vocative in English, e.g. &#39;o gentle moon&#39;. The Old English familiarity with cases and a high exposure to Latin and Latin-influenced, i.e. inflected, languages is historical-grammatical lubrication for ejaculations in the mouths of English-speakers everywhere. I don&#39;t know why per se the expression has fallen out of use, but it is certainly held as &#39;archaic&#39;.<br /><br />A sudden and drawn out &#39;oooooh&#39; could be considered more of an ejaculation, albeit still a clitic resembling an interjection. That is all I have to say. Good.<br /><br />P.S. I was hoping this would post anonymously, but I am exposed. The jig is up.Phil Trochowskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11245387117760510158noreply@blogger.com