"slang" (1746); favorable insults

[Jonathan Lighter]

Wilson, I was referring to the entire phrase. Sorry if my writing skills are
going away with everything else.

As for that black sailor, I think the existence of "like a son of a bitch"
in 1756 implies "like a motherfucker" almost as soon as possible.  You may
be fascinated to know that the few very early known exx. of "motherfucking"
(ca1890) are from Texas (trial reports). In spite of heroic research into
Civil War court-martial records, Dr. Thomas P. Lowry was evidently unable to
find a single MF.  Catch: these are Northern records only. The Secesh
records went up in flame during the fall of Richmond.

There's a very readable British WW1 memoir by Eric Hiscock [real name]
called _The Bells of Hell_ (1976). In it, he reports his astonishment in
1918 when he heard (white) doughboys referring to the Germans as
"motherfucking cocksuckers."  He was only 18 at the time, but after a year
in the British Army had never heard these terms.  This allegedly
"anachronistic" claim led some reviewers to question Hiscock's veracity.

Yet any literal-sense restrictions were already fading from the "MF" family
by 1915:

1915 _Southwestern Reporter_ CLXXVII (St. Paul: West Publishing Co.) 98: You
are nothing but a set of God-damned mother-fucking sons of bitches, the
whole business of you, womenfolks and all.

Note also "the whole business" for "the whole bunch." New to me.
JL

On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 4:39 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "slang" (1746); favorable insults
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 3:04 PM, Jonathan
> Lighter<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> quoted:
>
> "... splices like a son of a b----h ..."
>
> surprisingly commenting only upon the phrase, "son of a bitch,"
> overlooking this early example of
>
> "... _VERB like a_ son of a bitch ..."
>
> Anecdote. Ca.1963, my mother told me that a white woman-friend of hers
> had told her that, whereas white men use "son of a bitch," black men
> use "motherfucker" and asked me whether this assertion was indeed
> factual. (Mom does not associate with members of the lower orders of
> *any* race.) I assured her that, yes, indeed, was most certainly the
> case.
>
> Now, all we need is an early print example of, e.g. a black sailor
> saying, "... splices like a motherfucker ...,"
> --
> -Wilson
> –––
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -----
> -Mark Twain
>
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