obscene words from "Deadwood"

[Geoffrey Nunberg]

Thanks for this, Jesse, and to Dennis, Dale et al. for the other
comments. Of course we linguists are apt to be more put off by these
anachronisms than other people. I think of the  story about Edith
Head, the famous Hollywood costume designer, who as she was walking
out of "Oklahoma!" remarked to her companion: "I don't see what all
the fuss is about. The hems are two inches thick!"

Geoff


>On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 11:50:23AM -0800, Geoffrey Nunberg wrote:
>>  I had a call from David Bianculli, the TV reviewer from "Fresh Air,"
>>  who's doing a piece on the new HBO show "Deadwood," a western set in
>>  the 1860's which prides itself on the authenticity of both the
>>  setting and the obscenity-laced language (it's HBO, after all).
>
>They pride themselves on the authenticity of the language?
>Funny, I hadn't heard of any 19th-century obscenity
>specialists getting contacted by them with offers of
>money in exchange for accuracy ;-(.
>
>>  Among the phrases that the program uses are "cocksucker,"
>>  "piss off" (in the sense "irritate") and "shitface." David
>>  wanted to know if those words would in fact have been
>>  current in the language of the period.  I note that both the
>>  OED and HDAS give a Farmer and Henley entry in 1891 for the
>>  earliest use of "cocksucker," and that the OED's first cite
>>  of "piss off" is from 1968 and for "shitface" is from
>>  1937. In the light of those cites (but bearing in mind how
>>  long such terms can live in speech without being recorded),
>>  does the use of the words in "Deadwood" seem authentic?
>
>_Cocksucker_ was in use in the 1860s as a term of contempt
>(the earliest literal example I know of is from the 1880s,
>and comes from Fred Shapiro), _pace_ HDAS and OED. I don't
>know how common it could have been--it took a lot of effort
>to find this quote, but as you note this is not the sort
>of thing that would have been written down much. (OTOH,
>though, there's no source that anyone could have checked
>that would have revealed this information, so much for
>their authenticity.)
>
>_piss off_ we have earlier evidence for but nothing _near_
>the 1860s, and it would surprise me greatly if it was in
>use then. Same for _shitface_, though perhaps it would
>surprise me less.
>
>This reminds me of _Titanic._ There was all this talk
>about how they went to the original carpet manufacturer
>to have the carpets re-woven in the same pattern, and
>stuff like that, but I was _stunned_ with how awful the
>language was. (Also, of course, the things that people
>_said_ were inauthentic about the language were not
>anachronisms, but that's often the case.)
>
>There's a New York parking-ticket judge who's interested
>in linguistic anachronisms in the movies, but I've forgotten
>his name.
>
>Jesse Sheidlower
>OED/HDAS