The Lover's Tongue

Have you ever wondered where the word vagina comes from? Me neither, but after reading Mark Morton's new book, The Lover's Tongue: A Merry Romp Through the Language of Love and Sex, I can tell you. Vagina is a Latin word, which means sheath, or scabbard-basically a holster for a sword. Pretty vivid imagery, huh? After reading Morton's book, I can assure you that the imagery becomes even racier (racy is a seventeenth-century word describing wine, specifically, a sprightly wine).