No short 'n' curly...

[cb]

I was surprised that pube wasn't accepted.

Is this a regional word or an oversight?

[pat]

It was one I tried, too, cb.

[TRex]

Me too.

[mkenuk]

I wonder if the 's' form (pubes) would be allowed, if the letters were available, of course?
MK

[Alan W]

Yes, indeed, pubes is allowed.

One thing I hadn't realised until I looked it up, is that pubes is more than just a colloquial term for pubic hair. Pronounced "pyu-bees", it is a Latin-derived word meaning "the lower part of the abdomen at the front of the pelvis, covered with hair from puberty". It is also the plural of pubis.

As regards the informal term for pubic hair, some dictionaries list only the plural form, but some list pube as a word for a single pubic hair. Usage examples of the singular form don't seem to be plentiful, but there are a few. For example, How to be a Woman, by Caitlin Moran:

To see even a single hair, curling out the side, would be to have the whole world going, 'Is that a PUBE I can see? A PUBE. Lady Gaga?

I think pube should be admitted, as a rare word, but without removing pubes (so to speak), given its much more frequent appearance in the language.

[pat]

A bit of a rude story ...


The squash club I used to belong to was part of Rugby School which in those days admitted boys only. Consequently there were no separate changing rooms for males and females. Instead there were two small cubicles, each containing a bench and a shower. These cubicles were partitioned off from the corridor, but the partitions fell short of both the ceiling and the floor, enabling conversations on one side to be heard by people on the other side. If someone, say a woman, wanted a shower she would go into one of the cubicles and lock the door so that no men could accidentally wander in. Of course if another woman wanted to come in, it meant that effectively she would jump the queue to get a shower if there were men waiting (and of course the reverse would be true if there was a man in there but it didn't stop some of the men from becoming impatient if they were kept waiting).

On one occasion I was in there with a friend and she showed me something that hit both of our funny bones and sent us into cackle mode. Outside was a chap, known for his impatience, who'd already asked several times how much longer we were going to be and it obviously annoyed him that we were laughing our socks off while he was waiting to come in.

The conversation went like this:

Man (angrily): "What are you two laughing at?"

My friend: "An exceptionally long pubic hair."

Man (cockily): "How do you know it's a pubic hair?"

My friend: "Because it's still attached!"