Two shows on TV tonight, Keith Olberman’s Countdown and Boston Legal, had occasion to refer to people having sex with animals. (If you really must know, Olberman was reporting on Scooter Libby’s novel The Apprentice, which apparently includes several such scenes, and Boston Legal featured a storyline in which Michael McKean played a man whose wife wanted to annul their marriage because he was having sex with a cow.)
Both these shows repeatedly used the word “beastiality” to describe humans having sex with animals.
There is no such word. It’s “bestiality,” with a short E. Please stop mispronouncing this word.
“Beastiality” is the general term for the pastime. “Bestiality” means narrowing it down to those you gave you extra special pleasure.
I’m on the SDMB Gertrude, I’ll be there in a minute…Rooowwww.
Google gives 2 280 000 hits for “beastiality”, and 2 640 000 hits for “bestiality”. Seems like a well established spelling to me.
(That’s not a work-safe google, BTW :D.)
There’s no excusing netizens’ spellings, and after all we are supposed to be fighting ignorance. Why not a few other common misspellings, pulled from the top of my head first thing in the morning: “Wierd” gives 3,500,000 results, “Febuary” returns 2,160,000, and “Luv” (albeit with a few hits given to the stock symbol for Southwest Airlines) boasts 5,410,000.
Consult any legitmate dictionary, you will find “bestiality” but not “beastiality.”
And I forgot to say in my previous post, I’ve always pronounced it “beast-iality.” Seems like “best-iality” would have something to do with competition, desiring to be the best (pig fucker).
However, “weird” gives 64 400 000, “february” 639 000 000 and “love” 488 000 000, each at least an order of magnitude greater than the misspellings. “Beastiality” and “bestiality” get almost the same number of hits. “It’s not in the dictionary” is not a very compelling argument against it, in my opinion.
Because I heard it mispronounced in two different television shows in one night. And because the media are supposed to get things right, even if the unwashed masses don’t, half the time.
Screw that descriptivist B.S.! (Nothing personal, Q.E.D.)
Yeah but why is it bestiality? Obviously people write beastiality because it seems to make sense…beasts. Sex with beasts. I can’t find an etymology for it, why would it be bestiality?
(A pervert I know says it’s because it’s the “best”…which is also how I remember to spell it right…but his attitude can’t be the common one!)