If that is the true connotation of the word, why do we who are not Americans experience the erotic titillation and salivation at the mere mention of the word?
This brings us to the second and third words in Huxley's list: sex and food.
It is clear that words are sexy in a way that men and women are not. But there is a similarity. They are also disgusting or delicious, like food. "Eating and lovemaking are the most important and indispensable occupations of the human race; the life of the individual and the persistence of the race depend on them."
We are no longer hunter-gatherers and we no longer copulate in groups. We specialise, we exchange and we use cash. Food must, and sex can, be purchased. The lower orders, who eat little and fornicate much, we treat with contempt; we, the higher orders, eat much and fornicate less (or so we believe).
When a word has a high value in the marketplace, we get both repast and pastime, purchased with the cash made available. This explains why democracy as a word stands in such high esteem with us: we can buy whatever we want with it. Uttering the word is like ingesting manna; hearing it is like penetration. And all because the word has cash-value. The west subsidizes the spread of 'democracy' with oodles of dosh.
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