It was in kindergarten that I made the mistake of joining the Pen 15 Club. My induction was relatively harmless — I was offered membership by a fellow classmate, accepted the invitation with excitement and arranged to have the club's name tattooed onto the back of my hand in thick Sharpie marker later that afternoon. But alas, it was too good to be true; when spoken aloud, the club was advertised to me clearly as "Pen 15," but scribbled in semi-permanence on my skin it read — unmistakably — "penis."
I was tricked! In retrospect I should have picked up on something from my snickering "friends" enjoying the spectacle of my induction. But then, it was my naiveté — and that of the other Pen 15 members — that made the club so hysterical, embarrassing and possible to begin with.
It was the same reason why, several months later, I sat blushing in the fifth-floor principal's office for calling a classmate "Scheißkopf," German for sh--thead — a word I'm not allowed to print in a college newspaper, but back then simply heard around the house without understanding.
And it was the same reason why Adam and Eve walked around naked until they ate from the tree of knowledge, suddenly realized their junk was hanging out and ran to fetch the nearest grape leaves around.
Blinded by a lack of world experience, it's easy to act without hesitation — to join the Pen 15 Clubs of the world. But blinded by a bit of world experience, it's even easier to do the opposite and forget that, as adults, we still fall victim to our own spotty knowledge, naiveté and unintended vulgarity.
For example, have you ever giggled after uttering the word "porcelain?" Probably not, unless you're among the few who know that the P-word takes its name from a pig's vagina. The material is named for its resemblance to the glossy surface of a cowrie shell, "porcelaine" in French, "porcellana" in Italian. The curious name for the shellfish, however, comes from the Italian "porcella," meaning young sow. Some dictionaries, including the American Heritage Dictionary, explain the shell-baby pig connection by likening the shell's appearance to a pig's back. However, the more trusted tale the Oxford English Dictionary tells is that the shape of the cowrie's orifice was once thought to evoke a pig's lady parts.
Some others say "porcella" was euphemistic for human — not pig — lady parts, which in turn renders the etymology far less creepy and rids the story of implied human familiarity with pig vaginas.
"Porcelain" is not the only ordinary word with a loaded past, though. You might associate orchids with sophistication or elegance. Probably not with testicles, though. Reconsider, my friend, because if you've ever mentioned an orchid before, the botanists who named the plant after the testicular shape of its roots (from the Greek "orkhis," testicles) might as well have offered you a spot in the Pen 15 Club.
Meanwhile, plant-namers on the other side of the world seemed to have envisioned balls a bit differently. More … avocado-like. The word "avocado" came to us through Spanish but originates from the Aztec "ahuacatl," also meaning testicle, which leads me to think that the Aztecs either really enjoyed bathroom humor or had very few round objects lying around to poke fun at.
The truth is, whether back in kindergarten you were the kid who fell for the Pen 15 Club, or the Scheißkopf who started it, you'll eventually end up the butt of that joke one way or another. You can't avoid the Pen 15 Club. You can't rise above it. Membership is for life, and, like with most things we get ourselves into during those early days of childhood, there simply are no backsies.
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Romy Oltuski is a junior majoring in English. She can be reached at Romy.Oltuski@tufts.edu.
