# Any Gomorrah terms?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-gomorrah-terms/511955
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 29, 2009, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-gomorrah-terms/511955 "2009-09-29T07:25:10Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2009, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-gomorrah-terms/511955/1 "2009-09-29T07:25:10Z")
OK, from the Biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah we have terms like Sodomy and the British insult of telling somebody to sod off.
But what about Gomorrah? Are there any sexual terms in the English language named after that city?
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### Author:  [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2009, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-gomorrah-terms/511955/2 "2009-09-29T09:24:04Z")
Why would you need a second term if Sodomy already works as an euphenism that most people understand?
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### Author:  [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2009, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-gomorrah-terms/511955/3 "2009-09-29T11:06:18Z")
> [@constanze](#):
>
> Why would you need a second term if Sodomy already works as an euphenism that most people understand?
Er…To mean something different? :rolleyes:
(But no, I don’t know of any.)
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2009, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-gomorrah-terms/511955/4 "2009-09-29T15:45:33Z")
Gomorrhea?
😃
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### Author:  [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2009, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-gomorrah-terms/511955/5 "2009-09-29T16:55:11Z")
No terms that I know of.
Gomorrah is only mentioned in the Bible as a city nearby and like Sodom, but none of the action takes place there and none of the characters are involved with it.
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2009, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-gomorrah-terms/511955/6 "2009-09-29T16:57:43Z")
> [@kayaker](#):
>
> Gomorrhea?
>
> 😃
Actually, there _was_ such a word, and gonnorhea _does_ have a relationship to the word Gomorrah. [Cite.](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=gonorrhea)
The main thing I’ve always heard about Gomorrah is that it had cheaper drinks and great lofts just beginning to be redeveloped and was less touristy, but the shows weren’t nearly as good.
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### Author:  [@Uncertain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncertain)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2009, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-gomorrah-terms/511955/7 "2009-09-29T17:51:29Z")
I presume that “sodomy” comes from the incident in which the people of Sodom try to rape Lot’s male visitors (who are actually angels). As pointed out, none of the story takes place in Gomorrah, even though Gomorrah is destroyed along with Sodom.
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### Author:  [@Uncertain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncertain)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2009, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-gomorrah-terms/511955/8 "2009-09-29T17:54:27Z")
> [@Sampiro](#):
>
> Actually, there _was_ such a word, and gonnorhea _does_ have a relationship to the word Gomorrah. [Cite.](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=gonorrhea)
That link says that people _mistakenly_ associated the word “gonorrhea” with Gomorrah. It doesn’t say that there was ever a word that came from “Gomorrah”.
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### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2009, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-gomorrah-terms/511955/9 "2009-09-29T18:37:03Z")
“Gomorrahn” sounds vaguely like something from a Conan the Barbarian novel.
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### Author:  [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2009, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-gomorrah-terms/511955/10 "2009-09-29T19:26:40Z")
How about the phrase, “Sod 'em, for Gomorrah they die”? 🙂
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2009, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-gomorrah-terms/511955/11 "2009-09-29T19:37:51Z")
> [@Uncertain](#):
>
> That link says that people _mistakenly_ associated the word “gonorrhea” with Gomorrah. It doesn’t say that there was ever a word that came from “Gomorrah”.
Still has a relationship though. (It’s Sodom and Gomorrah, you wouldn’t expect it to be a normal straight relationship would you.;))
[QUOTE=Uncertain]
I presume that “sodomy” comes from the incident in which the people of Sodom try to rape Lot’s male visitors (who are actually angels). As pointed out, none of the story takes place in Gomorrah, even though Gomorrah is destroyed along with Sodom.
[/QUOTE]
Yep, sure does. Which is ironic because
1- The Bible clearly states that the sin of sodomy wasn’t about rape but about [arrogance towards the poor](http://bible.cc/ezekiel/16-49.htm)
2- There’s debate as to whether the men wanted to _rape_ the angels or just to _know_ them (i.e. interrogate them; the verb _yada_ [other spellings yaddah, yadaw, yadda] is closer to “meet and become familiar with” and not “have sex with”. That men in a paranoid walled city that had recently been sacked would say “I wonder who those strange looking men visiting the bedouin warlord’s nephew who’s not from around her and whose uncle Abram is a powerful bedouin warlord… let’s go find out who the hell they are” makes more sense than “Hey, hot guy alert! Let’s go rape some visitors!”)
3- Very much the same story appears in[Judges 19](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges+19&version=KJV)except with Benjaminites (men of the Tribe of Benjamin) rather than Sodomites. A stranger comes to town- a Levite- and seeks shelter with a righteous man, the men come to the door and say “Hey, we here you got comp’ny, we wanna _know_ him?” “Can’t do that, he’s comp’ny” says the priest, “but you can have my virgin daughter hyeah”. It ends differently than the Sodom story: there being no angels the crowd does take a woman, though the Levite’s unfaithful concubine rather than his host’s virgin daughter, and they gang rape her all night. In the morning the Levite says “Get up, time to go” and she dies, whereupon he starts a war with the Benjaminites.
So anyway, I’ve wondered why they don’t call sodomy, or at very least gang rape, Benjaminy.
But, _sincere_ famously means “without wax” and there’s a thousand other odd origins we use everyday, so what can ya do?
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### Author:  [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2009, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-gomorrah-terms/511955/12 "2009-09-29T19:53:33Z")
> [@Sampiro](#):
>
> There’s debate as to whether the men wanted to _rape_ the angels or just to _know_ them (i.e. interrogate them; the verb _yada_ [other spellings yaddah, yadaw, yadda] is closer to “meet and become familiar with” and not “have sex with”.
That has given me a whole new perspective on “yada, yada, yada.” :eek:
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### Author:  [@Uncertain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncertain)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2009, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-gomorrah-terms/511955/13 "2009-09-30T03:49:33Z")
> [@Sampiro](#):
>
> Yep, sure does. Which is ironic because
>
> 1- The Bible clearly states that the sin of sodomy wasn’t about rape but about [arrogance towards the poor](http://bible.cc/ezekiel/16-49.htm)
Well, Ezekiel says that. [Jude](http://bible.cc/jude/1-7.htm) says it was sexual immorality. And of course the Sodom and Gomorrah story isn’t in either of these books.
In any case, it doesn’t have to be named after what Sodom was destroyed for, just after something that happened there.
> [@](#):
>
> 2- There’s debate as to whether the men wanted to _rape_ the angels or just to _know_ them (i.e. interrogate them; the verb _yada_ [other spellings yaddah, yadaw, yadda] is closer to “meet and become familiar with” and not “have sex with”. That men in a paranoid walled city that had recently been sacked would say “I wonder who those strange looking men visiting the bedouin warlord’s nephew who’s not from around her and whose uncle Abram is a powerful bedouin warlord… let’s go find out who the hell they are” makes more sense than “Hey, hot guy alert! Let’s go rape some visitors!”)
Is there really any question about this. A [fair number of translations](http://bible.cc/genesis/19-5.htm) say “have sex” or something similar. Why would Lot offer up his daughters as a substitute, and how would they qualify as a substitute?
> [@](#):
>
> 3- Very much the same story appears in[Judges 19](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges+19&version=KJV)except with Benjaminites (men of the Tribe of Benjamin) rather than Sodomites. A stranger comes to town- a Levite- and seeks shelter with a righteous man, the men come to the door and say “Hey, we here you got comp’ny, we wanna _know_ him?” “Can’t do that, he’s comp’ny” says the priest, “but you can have my virgin daughter hyeah”. It ends differently than the Sodom story: there being no angels the crowd does take a woman, though the Levite’s unfaithful concubine rather than his host’s virgin daughter, and they gang rape her all night. In the morning the Levite says “Get up, time to go” and she dies, whereupon he starts a war with the Benjaminites.
> So anyway, I’ve wondered why they don’t call sodomy, or at very least gang rape, Benjaminy.
Yeah, that’s a weird story. But why did they want to “know” the Levite so badly?