The sentence was, “The children would groan whenever the actors would osculate.” The word in the sentence that is of interest is “osculate.” According to The Random House College Dictionary, the first definition is “to touch another curve or another part of the same curve so as to have the same tangent and curvature at the point of contact.” I do not know about you, but that definition leaves me totally in the dark! The second definition makes much more sense. It has just two words, “to kiss.” It actually helps to understand the first definition. We might translate it as one curve touches another curve to just kiss it.
I think the second definition, “to kiss,” is a minimal definition. It certainly wouldn’t cover French kissing. There is penetration in that kiss. The second definition is also very chaste. It implies a kiss your mother might give you, or you might give your mother. It also supports the first geometric definition. A tangent is “a straight line or plane that touches a curve or curved surface at a point, but if extended, does not cross it at that point.” There is clearly is no penetration of that curve.
I wonder if osculate might have a third definition meaning no penetration. What do you think?
