{"id":2653,"date":"2016-12-10T23:29:28","date_gmt":"2016-12-10T23:29:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress-699740-3928655.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=2653"},"modified":"2023-10-27T10:52:54","modified_gmt":"2023-10-27T10:52:54","slug":"brushgasm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valeriecollinswriter.com\/brushgasm\/","title":{"rendered":"Brushgasm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n

So I\u2019m back from digital darkness with a jumble of notes and drafts. I\u2019d lost the thread of this blog \u2013 until our cat had a brushgasm.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure you know what that is: a paroxysm of almost unbearable delight at having his coat brushed. The word furgasm also came to mind, immediately followed by purrgasm.<\/p>\n

Who knows when \u2013gasm was first detached from \u2018orgasm\u2019 and tacked on to other words to give us wealthgasms, ragegasms, droolgasms, shoegasms, nerdgasms\u2026 and a whole lot more<\/a>\u00a0 Oh, and wordgasms and writegasms, of course.<\/p>\n

The internet is awash with them. There\u2019s yarngasm<\/a>, \u201ca weekly podcast about knitting and making things.\u201d There\u2019s careergasm.com,<\/a> \u201ca place to help you find your way to feel-good work.\u201d And blinggasm.com<\/a> speaks for itself.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the word \u2018orgasm\u2019 has been divided in the \u2018wrong\u2019 place, as if it were composed of or- and -gasm. This is not a judgement, just a fascinating example of what English can do (and, um, a way of showing off my classical knowledge). The original Greek word \u2018orgasmos\u2019 (which came to us via New Latin) could not be divided in this way, as \u2018org-\u2019 was the root and \u2018asmos\u2019 the suffix (also seen in sarcasm, spasm, phantasm)<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the etymology:<\/p>\n

The Greek word orgasmos<\/em> orginally meant \u2018excitement, swelling,\u2019 from the verb organ<\/em> \u2018be in heat, become ripe for, literally \u2018to swell, be excited.\u2019 It\u2019s related to orge<\/em> \u2018impulse, excitement, anger,\u2019 from the Proto-Indo-European root *wrog- \u2018to burgeon, swell with strength’ (akin to Sanskrit \u016brj\u0101<\/em> \u2018nourishment, sap, vigor\u2019 and Old Irish ferc<\/em>, ferg<\/em>\u00a0 \u2018anger.\u2019)<\/p>\n

In many places, including Wiktionary above, these fun new words are described as \u2018suffixed\u2019 with \u2013gasm.<\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t think \u2013 gasm is a suffix. A suffix is a bit you add on to an existing word to form a new one, changing its word class or lexical category. For example, the suffix \u2013ness turns an adjective (happy) into a noun (happiness).<\/p>\n

This is a different process.<\/p>\n

Like -athon<\/a>, the detached word fragment \u00a0-gasm does not change the lexical category of the word it\u2019s attached to, but it does add new meaning. It combines with an existing word to make a new compound (as in tea + pot = teapot).<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, you can \u2018infix\u2019 it: \u201cSo to round off this \u2018Brain Tickler\u2019 chapter let\u2019s do this fun-gasm-tastic technique.\u201d (from a book on Neurolinguistic Programming).<\/p>\n

And I\u2019ve just discovered the stand-alone:<\/p>\n

A gasm, according to the Urban Dictionary<\/a>, is \u201cAn exceedingly cool guy who makes girls orgasm by the wink of an eye.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was going to leave you with this wonderful weathergasm<\/a> but at the last moment I discovered what just has to be my favourite: the gasmgasm. This is when you are so thrilled about the possibility of having an orgasm, you actually have an orgasm.<\/p>\n

The possibilities are endless, so make up your own and leave them along with your favourites in the comments, where they will be most welcome.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I\u2019m back from digital darkness with a jumble of notes and drafts. I\u2019d lost the thread of this blog \u2013 until our cat had a brushgasm. I\u2019m sure you know what that is: a paroxysm of almost unbearable delight at having his coat brushed. The word furgasm also came to mind, immediately followed by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3462,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,31,33],"tags":[30,34],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valeriecollinswriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2653"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valeriecollinswriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valeriecollinswriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valeriecollinswriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valeriecollinswriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2653"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/valeriecollinswriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3463,"href":"https:\/\/valeriecollinswriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2653\/revisions\/3463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valeriecollinswriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valeriecollinswriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valeriecollinswriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valeriecollinswriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}