Context can make a word taboo

Oct 17, 2014
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It was said that the principal at a private girls' school had refused to have a sextet as an item on the concert program. Possibly she couldn’t face the thought of the titters that would greet this announcement, and insisted that it had to be a quintet or a septet, but NOT a sextet.

A musician sharing this piece of information commented that in French the word for sextet is sextuor. Just the smallest typo could make it a spicy item indeed.


(Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)


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