Saturday, March 16, 2013

NAKED OR NUDE?

It's Saturday morning, and what better post could we make than talking about the most appropriate words to use to describe our unclothed form? 

NUDE - Many within  our "community" choose this word.  It is, after all, the root of the word nudist.  They also believe, and we understand, that the word carries the connotation of having some class, as well as conveying that our state is non-sexual.  Think nude statuary, or nude fine art prints and you get the idea. NUDE also does not seem to imply the degree of vulnerability that some other words do. Despite all these advantages, the Platypuses can't say we reach for this word from the shelf all that often.

NAKED - This word has many advantages.  First, it's descriptive.  If you  say you went swimming naked, everyone else knows what you're talking about.  Second, we note that the word is used in the Bible to describe how Adam and Eve walked around in that garden: NAKED and not ashamed. Naked in that passage from Genesis doesn't imply that there was anything lacking or especially vulnerable about the couple, but phrases like "cold, helpless, and naked" or "I feel naked without my cell phone" have come to change how some view the word.  We like it and it still commands attention when spoken.

NEKKID - As a great comedian often said, NAKED is when you have no clothes on. NEKKID is when you have no clothes on and you're up to something.

BARE - It's one of our favorite words.  In fact, it's part of our name BARE PLATYPUS. Therein lies something about the word... it seems to go best when paired with another word, e.g. BARE bottom, BARE bum, BARE naked, etc.  Of course, you can use it in the oft cited "BARE with us" slogan.  Put the word with a graphic of a cartoon butt and you have a winning combination.

NAKEY or NAKIE - are ways little kids sometimes refer to romping around with nothing on.   As such, it adds a touch of fun, impishness, and innocence to the whole thing. The Rugrats once used the word dozens of times in a single episode.

UNCLOTHED or UNDRESSED-  Very matter-of-fact, generic words to describe nudity.  The only problem we have with them is that they seem to imply that clothing or being dressed is the default state... maybe even that things should be clothed or dressed soon to rectify the deficiency.  What would you do about unwashed dishes or unfinished business?

AU NATURALE - This is probably the most polite way of saying "naked" but it may be too polite.  Some people don't know what you mean when you say or write it.  It turns into a euphemism of sorts.  Still, when writing a long article and you don't want to type nude for the 100th time, it's an alternative.  It also implies, of course, being natural about one's nudity.

IN THE ALTOGETHER - This phrase takes nudity even one more step removed from raw words such as NAKED.  It's even less understood if you don't wish to unsettle the children dear.  So it can get lost in conversation along with words like gymnosophist or Abyssinian or other foreign phrases like "tout nu" and "cul nu."

How about it Platypus readers?  What's your favorite word to describe our favorite way to be?  Why?  Do you have any other term(s) you use?  Tell us about it in the comments below.

3 comments:

  1. On the class distinction between "nude" and "naked", y'all might like the following (from www.etymonline.com). The tl;dr is that, like lots of words with nearly equivalent meanings in modern English, the high-class one is from French and the low-class one is from Anglo-Saxon.

    My own preference for Anglo-Saxon origins should have me using "naked" more often than "nude", but there's also interference from my using "nudist" rather than "naturist" since people know what nudists are but are often confused about what naturists might be. So I probably use "nude" more often than "naked", but I'd like it to be the other way around.

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    naked (adj.)
    Old English nacod "nude, bare; empty," also "not fully clothed," from Proto-Germanic *nakwathaz (cf. Old Frisian nakad, Middle Dutch naket, Dutch naakt, Old High German nackot, German nackt, Old Norse nökkviðr, Old Swedish nakuþer, Gothic naqaþs "naked"), from PIE root *nogw- "naked" (cf. Sanskrit nagna, Hittite nekumant-, Old Persian *nagna-, Greek gymnos, Latin nudus, Lithuanian nuogas, Old Church Slavonic nagu-, Russian nagoi, Old Irish nocht, Welsh noeth "bare, naked"). Related: Nakedly; nakedness. Applied to qualities, actions, etc., from late 14c. (first in "The Cloud of Unknowing"); phrase naked truth is from 1585, in Alexander Montgomerie's "The Cherry and the Slae":
    Which thou must (though it grieve thee) grant
    I trumped never a man.
    But truely told the naked trueth,
    To men that meld with mee,
    For neither rigour, nor for rueth,
    But onely loath to lie.
    [Montgomerie, 1585]
    Phrase naked as a jaybird (1943) was earlier naked as a robin (1879, in a Shropshire context); the earliest known comparative based on it was naked as a needle (late 14c.). Naked eye is from 1660s, unnecessary in the world before telescopes and microscopes.

    nude (n.)
    "nude figure in visual art," 1708, from French nud, obsolete variant of nu "naked, nude, bare," from Latin nudus (see nude (adj.)).

    nude (adj.)
    1530s, a legal term, "unsupported, not formally attested," from Latin nudus "naked, bare, unclothed, stripped" (see naked). General sense of "mere, plain, simple" attested from 1550s. In reference to the human body, meaning "unclothed," it is an artistic euphemism for naked, dating from 1610s (implied in nudity) but not in common use in this sense until mid-19c.

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  2. "Naked as a jaybird" was in use in Texas in the mid- to late 1930s; I first heard it from my grandmother who was from Crawford, County, Georgia, so it may well be older than that. Jays, like most birds (other than ground or water nesting species) are altricial.

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  3. There's also the spiritual reference to being naked, when people call themselves "Skyclad"... being clothed with nothing but the air all around us, the sky and sun above. Combine that with being "Earth-shod", when referring to walking barefoot, and you have the spiritual connection of nudity to believers in the divinity of Nature.

    So, when wanting to be a little poetic and shine my barefoot and naked spiritual self, I call myself "Earth-Shod and Skyclad". And I am also helping in coining the term for spiritual nakedness by calling myself a "Nuddhist". :-)

    From the list of terms you presented, I'd choose "naked" as my favourite, since it's the most familiar term in my native German language, too (and derived from it).

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