Anonymous asked: you're a girl? this whole time I've read your responses to asks with a male voice in my head. Ahahaha

I—am not sure how to feel about this. Um. (Now you’ve got me scrolling back through all my asks and reading my answers to see if it was at all obvious what gender I was.)

But anyways, yeah, announcement: I am a girl. Hello everybody! I’m certainly not a soprano, though, so I suppose you could kick the male voice up a few notches in pitch and you’d be sort of close.

Anonymous asked: what's another word for a cheater/ someone having an affair?

…well, I have many words for a cheater. But not many of them are polite enough to use in this answer, if you know what I mean.

Philanderer works for a man who cheats, but it’s not exclusive to cheaters. It can also mean a man who chases women and has many insignificant sexual relationships.

Quisling is a good one. It means traitor, especially during war, but I’ve also known it used to describe a cheater. Spoken aloud, it has a nice undertone of disgust to it—doesn’t it just sound sort of slimy? Appropriate, I think.

Fun etymology fact of the day: Despite the appearance, the words “adult” and “adultery” come from two different Latin roots, so they aren’t related at all.

Anonymous asked: What does it mean to "embark on the final leg of one's journey"?

To go on the last bit of a journey. A leg is a part of a journey. It’s most commonly used in the phrase “final leg”, but I suppose you could say “the first leg of this hike is going to be really tough, so bring water and suck it up because we’re going to DO THIS.”

…yep.

Anonymous asked: In the "-philia" vein, is there anything for fire? Not pyrophilia in the sense of lighting fires, but in the sense of arousal from being burnt. Cheers.

My search history right now is a thing of horror. brb clearing all of it ever

I tried, I really did, but I came up with nothing. And I am a search engine ninja. (So I like to think.) There have been academic papers written on the subject, but no one’s managed to come up with a name for it. I’m sorry!

Anonymous asked: Is there a word for someone get sexually aroused from being, or being bitten

Odaxelagnia is arousal through biting/nibbling or being bitten, so the word would be odaxelagniac, I suppose?

I have quite a number of entertaining arousal/sex/-philia words, but I refrain from posting all of them because I feel like it would get repetitive. But certainly some of them will come up from time to time!

Anonymous asked: Fun story with anons: I once knew someone who changed his name all the time. He was once Phillip, and once Eric, and after around six name changes he changed his name to Jack because he figured he could be a jack-of-all-trades in that name. So yep. Fun story.

Anonymous asked: do you have a word that describes someone who basically loves to do everything? something sexier than "renaissance man"

Tausendsassa! A jack-of-all-trades, or someone with many interests and talents. I’m not sure if it’s sexy, per se, but at least it’s interesting.

Honestly, I think “Renaissance man” (or woman!) is fairly sexy on its own. I like “jack-of-all-trades”, too. (Jill-of-all-trades?)

(EDIT Apparently tausendsassa is a bit of a “wacky” word in German. chenisthebestkitty suggested “Kavalier” (also German), traditionally someone who is elegant, intelligent, honorable, and worldly. In modern terms it’s something like someone who pursues women with elegance and class.)

(DOUBLE EDIT heavenshallremember suggested “bricoleur”, French for a tinkerer or DIY-er, and more broadly one who dabbles in many things. Several anons, bausteine, and elfflame suggested “polymath”, a person of great and varied learning, which I think wins here for sexiness. Good work, everyone!)

(so many parentheses)