Teenagers like to try to embarrass their teachers and I had two such instances today: 'what is a transexual?' and 'is the plural of penis peni?' I consider myself as being someone who generally turns a very rosy colour at anything to do with sex, reproductive organs or even remotely related to body parts, even thumbs, but as a teacher you've got to look them straight in the eye and say:
'A transsexual is someone with both male and female reproductive organs'. Wrong. I'm such a geek I looked it up later - it's a good job I don't have to teach too much sex education because there'd be some very confused kids out there. Whilst we're on the subject, a woman can't get pregnant if you do it standing up right?
And: 'I think the plural is just penises'. Which is good enough though penes is also correct and I think sounds a little more comical. Though I'd be hard pushed to think of a situation where it'd be required. How often do people spend time discussing more than one penis? Personally it's rare I'll even discuss that many.
aaah the penis debate ... that has been going on for ages. hermaphrodite (spelling?) is both organs 
2007-06-05 @ 19:54