Actionable Offenses: Scrouge

[Baker, John]

        I should mention that I can easily email an mp3 of the
"scrouge," "cunting," or any other recitations on the CD, if anyone is
interested.  The recitations themselves are in the public domain, so it
would not be a problem if someone wanted to post them on the Internet.
The excellent liner notes are, of course, copyrighted.


John Baker



-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Baker, John
Sent: Monday, July 07, 2008 12:51 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Actionable Offenses: Scrouge

        Archeophone Records in 2007 produced a CD entitled Actionable
Offenses:  Indecent Phonograph Recordings from the 1890s.  It presents
the contents of two collections of phonograph recordings from the 1890s,
the very dawn of commercial use of the phonograph.  These are
essentially men's dirty stories - dialogues, poems, or other set pieces,
in each case recited by a single man, sometimes using multiple voices.
They were indeed actionable offenses; one of the actors, Russell
Hunting, was arrested for violation of the obscenity laws in 1896 and
served a three-month prison term.  The CD is accompanied by what is
unquestionably the finest set of liner notes I have ever seen.

        A striking finding of the CD is the use of the word "scrouge"
(rhymes with "gouge"), which I believe was not previously known to have
an improper meaning.  It's quite clear what it means on the CD, though;
if context were not sufficient, absolute proof is provided in that the
same story, "Sim Hadley on a Racket," was recorded twice, once by
Hunting and once by James White, who became Hunting's successor when
Hunting retired from the indecent recording business after his arrest.
The White version uses "scrouge" wherever the Hunting version uses
"fuck."

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