Gershon Legman (November 2, 1917 – February 23, 1999), American folklorist and social critic, was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania to parents of Eastern or Central European Jewish descent. As a young man he acquired a number of interests including sexuality, erotic folklore, and origami. For a period of time he was a bibliographic researcher with the Kinsey Institute; and, in 1949, he published Love and Death, an attack on sexual censorship. During this period he also published a little magazine (actually so informally it was rather like a fanzine), Neurotica, which featured notable contributions and had some influence disproportionate to its circulation. Neurotica was published as a collection in a book and had some influence on Marshall Mcluhan. The Horn Book : studies in erotic folklore and bibliography was a collection of assorted writings from the 1950s and 1960s. November 2 is the 306th day of the year (307th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 59 days remaining. ... 1917 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... February 23 is the 54th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1999 is a common year starting on Friday of the Common Era, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ... Folkloristics is the formal academic study of folklore such as fairy tales and folk mythology in oral or non-literary traditions. ... The Scranton Electric Building, seen from the side. ... State nickname: The Keystone State Other U.S. States Capital Harrisburg Largest city Philadelphia Governor Ed Rendell (D) Official languages None Area 119,283 km² (33rd)  - Land 116,074 km²  - Water 3,208 km² (2. ... Pre-1989 division between the West (grey) and Eastern Bloc (orange) superimposed on current national boundaries: Russia (dark orange), other countries of the former USSR (medium orange) and other former communist regimes (light orange). ... Historical lands and provinces in Central Europe Central Europe is the region lying between the variously and vaguely defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe. ... Judaism is the religious culture of the Jewish people. ... A crane and papers of the same size used to fold it Origami (折紙 origami paper folding) is the art of Japanese paper folding. ... The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction, often shortened to Kinsey Institute, exists to promote interdisciplinary research and scholarship in the fields of human sexuality, gender, and reproduction. The Institute was founded as the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University at Bloomington in 1947 by Alfred... 1949 is a common year starting on Saturday. ... A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense — including the short story, poetry and essay — and also literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews, letters and gossip. ... A fanzine (see also: zine) is an nonprofessional publication produced by fans of a particular subject for the pleasure of others who share their interest. ... Herbert Marshall McLuhan (July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian educator, philosopher, scholar, professor of English literature, literary critic, communications theorist, who is one of the founders of the study of media ecology and is today an honorary guru today among technophiles. ...

In 1953 Legman left his native United States for a farm Le Clé des Champs in the village of Valbonne in the South of France, where he was able to pursue his intellectual interests with greater freedom. 1953 is a common year starting on Thursday. ...

Legman spent several decades compiling specimens of bawdy humor including limericks. In 1970 his first volume of over 1700 limericks (published in France in the 1950s) was released in the United States as The Limerick. He followed this with a second volume, The New Limerick in 1977, which was was reprinted as More Limericks in 1980. His magnum opus was Rationale of the Dirty Joke: (An Analysis of Sexual Humor), a tour de force of erotic folklore, succeeded by No Laughing Matter : Rationale of the Dirty Joke: An Analysis of Sexual Humor, 2nd Series for which a subscription had to be paid to support publishing as no publisher would touch it after Grove did volume one in 1968. A limerick is a short, often humorous and ribald poem developed to a very specific structure. ... // Events and trends The 1950s in Western society was marked with a sharp rise in the economy for the first time in almost 30 years and return to the 1920s-type consumer society built on credit and boom-times, as well as the height of the baby-boom from returning... 1977 was a common year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1977 calendar). ... 1980 is a leap year starting on Tuesday. ...

Gershon Legman died in early 1999 in his adopted home country, France, after several years of debility. 1999 is a common year starting on Friday of the Common Era, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ...