In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Boys Teach Me Things.

Jill

Because I need a little humor to break up what has been a fairly depressing news day, a g-chat conversation between myself — who is apparently perceived as an expert on all things vagina-related — and a male friend. Laugh and enjoy:

Neil: question
Me: shoot
Neil: how do you pronounce “kegel” as in the exercises for your vag
Me: kee-guhl
Neil: like “key”
Me: yes
Neil: ok, well you’re wrong, fyi
as a feminist you should know this
its KAY-guhl
Me: really?
Neil: i should get a h/t on your blog for this
Neil: julie [our mutual friend] says i should explain
although i think this convo is way better without any context
julie pronounced it wrong and blamed you
then cited you as a more definitive authority than anything i could find on the internet.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/audio.pl?kegel01m.wav=Kegel exercises
but cf. http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/audio.pl?kegel02m.wav=Kegel exercises’
these are our new ringtones
btw

I guess you learn something new every day. h/t Neil.

47 thoughts on Boys Teach Me Things.

  3. Also, you def taught me “KEE-guhl” many years ago while tar beaching. So if Neil is right then I’ve been pronouncing it wrong ever since then.

  6. In my defense, that’s how the good Dr. who invented (discovered?) them apparently pronounces it. Someone should tell Merriam-Webster, too.

  9. Also, Jill, sorry we turned your blog into a group gchat convo. Now you know why the three of us never get any work done.

  11. Interesting. My Health professor pronounced it “KAY-guhl.” Before telling us that she kegels whenever she hits a red light.

    The more you know.

  18. kay-guhl. definitely. Way better convo if you plug in names of your own friends, btw. For me it is, anyway.

  21. Teutophile that I am, I pronounce “kegel” as “kay-gul” because the name looks Germanic to me and that’s how you would say it in German.

  23. Since we’re studying for First Amendment, I’m sure Neil is glad that he has contributed to the marketplace of ideas.

  24. In laboratory tests, women who regularly exercise using the kegel maneuver held on to their men five times longer than women who did not exercise in this manner. =)

    Boys just want to be held girls, held with a viselike grip. šŸ˜‰

  25. Aaron B. Brown – Are you serious? Please don’t refer to women as girls. Or wink at us afterwards. And please don’t assume we’re all straight.
    And, Kegels are for much more than giving a guy a nice grip. Like, stronger orgams and preventing incontinence.

  26. I always assumed it was Kay-guhl, like ‘Hegel.’

    I think Hegels should be an exercise. You would work opposing muscle groups until you… er… integrated them into new muscles.

    Also, the exercise manual would be like 700 pages.

  28. Huh, I’ve always said and heard it as “keg-uhl,” where “keg” sounds like, well, “keg.”

    But, wait — there are two common pronunciations of “clitoris”? Eh?

  29. For once, I can be the definitive authority on an issue here… and why? Kegels is my last name! (Yes, related to the doctor who… ). And the name is Belgian, not German (with Flemish being somewhat of a Germanic language, I guess).

    It’s pronounced kai-khuls, with the first syllable sounding like the ai in bait and the second syllable starting with a glottal sound that is also found in Hebrew and Arabic (and that most American-speakers probably can’t pronounce).

    Tada! That should settle your discussion šŸ™‚

  30. I think Hegels should be an exercise. You would work opposing muscle groups until youā€¦ erā€¦ integrated them into new muscles.

    i actually LOLed.

    & I have apparently always pronounced it right! boo-yah!

    but, yeah, wait, how do people pronounce clitoris if not clih-toe-riss?

  31. I pronounce it ‘clih-tuh-riss’, which according to Wiki’s phonetic rendering is correct, and is the only way I’ve heard it pronounced – is that not common, then?

  32. Here in the UK it’s “keh-gel” most of the time. Though we don’t tend to call them that anyway, we call them ‘pelvic floor exercises’. ;o)

  33. I think the clitoris debate is more about which syllable is accented/emphasized rather than the phonetic sound.

  36. I only time I’ve ever heard the other pronunciation of clitoris is on that Seinfeld episode.

    I say kee-gul, not kay-gul.

    I’m not surprised that if read properly in German, given that it is someone’s name, it’s pronounced differently than most people say it, but at a certain point, the way that 90 percent of the population pronounces it becomes the correct pronunciation. Or at least – not incorrect. If grammarians are starting accept “Everyone does their homework” as proper English, I think we can make room for kee-gul.

  37. Well, I’m relieved to hear it’s Belgian. I always used the German pronounciation KAY-gell, but that is, ironically, the German word for “ball”.

  39. Since it appears in the dictionary as Kay-gul, the “correct” pronunciation is obviously kay-gul. However, I’ve always heard it as key-gul, and as chingona (#36) alludes to, words evolve. It is okay to have more than one pronunciation of a word (it’s called dialect!!!).
    At this point, I think the bigger question is: Niel, if you already knew the pronunciation why did you ask Jill in the first place? Oh because you were being an ass and purposely trying to trap her…

  40. Continued language nerdy-ness: Kegel is the word for (among other things) bowling pin in German.

  41. Oh right, Butch, thanks for jogging my memory. Kugel is ball in Germany. Kugel as in Kugelschreiber, ballpoint pen, and Bowlingspielkugel, as in bowling ball.

    Not enough caffeine today!

  42. I always said “clitoris” like “Clih-TOR-uhs,” the same way I always pronounced “diabetes” as “Dia-beet-us,” as opposed to “dia-beet-eez.” At least, I think of the two words as similar in their pronunciation differences.

    While we’re on the topic of weird pronunciations, anyone call your parent’s sisters your “ants”? I wonder if it’s just a Midwestern thing. Or a Minnesota thing, since my Missouri cousins laugh at me when I call their mom “ANT Ruthie.”

  44. While weā€™re on the topic of weird pronunciations, anyone call your parentā€™s sisters your ā€œantsā€? I wonder if itā€™s just a Midwestern thing. Or a Minnesota thing, since my Missouri cousins laugh at me when I call their mom ā€œANT Ruthie.ā€

    I pronounce “aunt” like “ant”, too, but then again, I grew up in the Midwest. Probably a regional dialect thing.

  45. Who cares how to pronounce it- the main thing is that it is exercise for a part of the body that wants to be strong too- besides its an exercise you can do when you are bored sitting in a meeting!

  46. another side note:

    kegel, in german (and dutch, and flemmish) is not the same as the german kugel. Kegel is a geometric form; kugel, in german, the word for ball-shape objects, for bullets, or for icecream scoops.

    So yeah, in bowling, there are kegels and kugels involved… sort of. but kegel in itself is not the same as kugel.

  47. hah, just thought of something else: a kegel is a cone-shaped object – so when icecream cones also involve both kegels and kugels.. woohoo!

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