Ejaculation (grammar) 1811176 220372776 2008-06-19T15:22:31Z 221.216.54.185 {{otheruses|ejaculation (disambiguation)}} In [[grammar]], an '''ejaculation''' is an [[utterance]] that expresses a feeling outside of the normal language structure. Often, but not always, it is an [[exclamation]], most often consisting of a single word, either an [[interjection]] or a [[profanity]] or both. Examples: * In [[English language|English]]: ** The shout ''Hey!''. ** The ''huh'' in ''That man? Huh! He's history!'' ** "Glory to God!", "Glory be!", or "Praise the Lord!" In this context, this is known as a '''religious ejaculation''', not to be confused with a '''religious profanity'''. * In spoken [[French language|French]]: ** The exclamation ''Bien!''. <!--The term is now considered archaic, and "to ejaculate" is associated almost exclusively with the sexual meaning. But it was in common usage in the grammatical sense up to the latter part of the 19th Century and early part of the 20th. It can be found in popular culture such as the [[Biggles]] books and [[libretto|libretti]] by [[W. S. Gilbert]]. [[Nathaniel Hawthorne]] used it in attributions of dialogue, such as the famous "Great Carbuncle" reference to the ''Lord de Vere''. (Coincidentally, the same sentence also uses the word "intercourse" in a non-sexual sense.)--> Despite Christopher Woolf's denial of this fact, the term ejaculation is still used very prevalently by respected linguists all over the world to describe the part of speech that this article is about. ==See also== *[[Interjection]] *[[Discourse marker]] [[Category:Oral communication]] [[Category:Grammar]] {{ling-stub}}