Author Nicholson Baker has returned to the subject of sex for his latest novel, House of Holes, which is published this week. Reviewers so far have not been universally kind – while the New York Times called the book a "hideously glorious filthfest", the Guardian's critic found it "completely ridiculous . . . whether you read it as camp parody or straight smut".
Still, few could help but be impressed by Baker's uniquely creative approach to euphemism, laid bare in a copy editors' style sheet currently circulating on the internet. Besides specifying use of "the fifties" in preference to "the 1950s", the document aims to police the consistent spelling of terms such as "loinstem" and "peeny wanger".
If you'd like to learn to speak Baker, here's a short glossary of synomyns in the book, compiled by the online magazine The Millions:
Penis: bulldog, thundertube, ham steak, mandingo, purple cameroon, tuber, charley horse, fleshbone, pack mule, hellhound, manjig, Pollock, Malcolm Gladwell.
Vagina: stash, train station, slobbering kitty, chickenshack, lettuce patch.
Semen: manstarch, silly string, blookie, doddle-goo, ham juice.
Breasts: hangers, jerries, britneys, cookies, jaybirds.
Buttocks: wonderloaves.
To ejaculate: to pop the oyster.
Clitoris: lemondrop, Monsieur Twinklestump.
