A few weeks ago we gave our Intro to Sociology students a quiz on marriage practices. The two words they had to come up with were polygyny and polyandry.
Polygyny, the practice of one man having several wives, is the most common form of polygamy. Polyandry, the practice of one woman having several husbands, is much more rare, known mostly in Nepal, Tibet, and Bhutan.
Both of these terms were discussed at length and written on the board during the lecture. The quiz was administered at the end of the class period, and the following is a partial list of their answers:
paligiamy, molygamy, polyganomy, moligany, paligomy, poligony, pilogymy, polyreny, poligimy, poligymay, poligamy, polygeny, polyanmy, poligamy, moligamy, polyndry, polygny, polygany, polandry, polygomy, polyngmy, molyngmy, matrigyny
Some of their answers surpass mere misspellings, however. I have taken the liberty of defining some of these neologisms for posterity.
polygony - the practice of marrying multiple geometrists.
polyginy - the practice of drinking multiple gins.
polygandy - the practice of marrying multiple railroad workers.
polojamy - the uniform worn by a polo player at a slumber party.
polygoma - a type of cancer, possibly related to maligiamy, also one of their answers.
polymatry - the practice of marrying multiple mothers.
malagamy - the practice of bad marriage.
polygandry - the practice of marrying multiple male geese.
polyanthy - multiple flowers?
paligamy - the practice of marrying your best friend.
peligyny - female pelicans?
polagamy - the practice of marrying a Pole.
molyandry - wasn't she a famous Irish step dancer?
polyangy - the practice of marrying multiple women named Angela.
monagamy - being faithful to a nagger.
patriocly - I think I had this in a stir-fry once...
paligrimay, paligrimase - I don't know what these mean, but they are lovely words - sounds like something medieval.
molygamy - "If you really a playa, it's not just polygamy, it's MO-lygamy!"
Polygyny, Polyandry, and Neologisms
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7 comments:
"There should have been a word bank."
"You didn't say that there was going to be a quiz. Otherwise I would've written them down."
"But we weren't allowed to use our notes."
Yeah, I'm still jaded after teaching the introductory astronomy lab at Michigan State. I actually had one student want full points for the following response to a explain-why-you-did-something question: Because Kim told us to.
Kim Dupczak
Wow...and these are college students....My heart just died a little...Hopefully it was a 1000 level...
Indeed, it was a 1000 level class. I like to think that some of them were just messing around, but this IS the class that wrote that the two social classes in Marxism were the Bourgeoisie and the Presbyterian... (sigh)
Kim,
So glad you still drop by from time to time! I miss late night rambling about B movies and "The Scarlet Ladder"...
:)
Yeah, these kinds of quizzes are evidence for reverse evolution if I ever saw it. Still, your "definitions" are HI-larious!
And I can't remember, did I ever give you the link to 'The 10 Doctors' online graphic novel?
Polyginy, that's awesome. I think I might have to become a polyginist!
I laughed out loud! especially about polygony (in a previous life I studied math at UW) aka-Becca's mom
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