There are a number of English words

there are a number of English words Another antique. In "Joseph Andrews," Henry Fielding uses a colorful phrase now wholly unknown. Several characters in the book, after getting into an argument, "fell together by the ears" — that is, they started fighting. If you get other people fighting, you have "set them together by the ears." Of course, none of us would do that, and very few are likely even to say it. Does the phrase paint for you, as for me, an amusing if not very accurately descriptive picture?

You what? In a language and a society perfused with sex, there are a number of English words that have a salacious sound, but which are really quite suitable for the drawing room (short, incidentally, for "withdrawing room," to which the ladies withdrew after dinner to leave the gentlemen to their port and walnuts). Some time ago I used in conversation the word "succedaneum." I used it in a context proper to its meaning (having just learned it and succumbed to my pedantic proclivities) but got nevertheless from my hearer a look that seemed to question its propriety. I hastily explained that it just meant "substitute."

Here are a few other couth (yes, it's in the dictionary) words that sound uncouth. If someone asked you if you had experienced formication, it would have nothing to do with sexual conduct or your views about the same, but rather whether you were bothered by a "tactile hallucination involving the belief that something is crawling on the body or under the skin," which is scary enough itself. Such a condition would probably not be caused or cover exacerbated by the presence on one's body of cockchafers, that is, of certain scarab beetles, esp. the European species, melolontha melolontha, which prefers trees.