Linguistic Similarities?

[debka_notion]

In the course of looking for definitions of love for my latest website project (Sparked by something Efi wrote, go figure), I was just reading some random stuff online, which was talking about how one older Greek word for "to kiss" (I originally wrote "kissing", but then I'd have to match it with the same sort of verbal noun later on, and "impregnating" just sounds Odd.) fell out of use because it sounded too much like the verb "to impregnate". I seem to remember a similar issue in French. Oh you linguists out there- know you if this is a common problem? (Either having those words sound alike, or having the slang for one mean the other) Any ideas if this might have something to do with actual etymology, or just coincidence?

Comments

[lordameth.livejournal.com]

Doubt it's of any help, but i felt the need to contribute anyway;

as far as I'm aware, most of the common Japanese words for such things come directly from the English - words like "sekusu", "fakku", "kisu". The word for impregnate, interestingly enough, literally comes from "to imbue with life".

I've definitely heard of people having issues with the Japanese word for..um.. girl parts... sounding too much like far more everyday words. But anyway.

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

In Arabic if you mispronounce the word for husband (zawzh-ok, literally the masculine version of "one of a pair"), you get the word for sex (zoozh). (In both of these, zh is pronounced as in the s in vision.)