So, I was just reading a recent Independent On Sunday, in which I learned that the play Sex, for which its star Mae West was imprisoned on an obscenity charge in 1927, was described by Variety magazine as "a sink of moral turpitude".
It's a phrase I've only ever seen in one other place: the visa waiver form you have to fill in on flights to the USA. It always used to baffle me. "Have you ever been convicted of a crime of moral turpitude?" Er, what? Turnips? Turps? Ermintrude? Huh?
Has anyone come across this phrase, or even the word 'turpitude', in any other context? Without looking it up, can you offer a stab as to what it means?
I mean, I guess it means "the sort of thing Mae West used to get up to". Maybe that'll do for a working definition...
It's a phrase I've only ever seen in one other place: the visa waiver form you have to fill in on flights to the USA. It always used to baffle me. "Have you ever been convicted of a crime of moral turpitude?" Er, what? Turnips? Turps? Ermintrude? Huh?
Has anyone come across this phrase, or even the word 'turpitude', in any other context? Without looking it up, can you offer a stab as to what it means?
I mean, I guess it means "the sort of thing Mae West used to get up to". Maybe that'll do for a working definition...
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