Period language in "12 Years a Slave": "soft soap", "clean shirt"

Sissy SoFunk sissy.sofunk at GMAIL.COM
Sun Dec 22 19:23:31 UTC 2013


The earliest (maybe) related quote I found was in a 1868 edition of Punch,
with the line "...with a shirt-front as irreproachably spotless as was his
moral character underneath"

http://books.google.ca/books?id=_F4PAQAAIAAJ&dq=with%20a%20shirt-front%20as%20irreproachably%20spotless%20as%20was%20his%20moral&pg=PA234#v=onepage&q=with%20a%20shirt-front%20as%20irreproachably%20spotless%20as%20was%20his%20moral&f=false

There is also, in an 1837 collection of "essays and sketches of
characters", an essay titled "MIDSHIPMAN'S EXPEDIENTS OR THE DEPUTY CLEAN
SHIRT "  by an "E Howard, Esq", which has some pretty overt connections
between how many clean shirts you own and your worth as a person (though
not necessarily your moral purity)


http://books.google.ca/books?id=5KgBAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA109&dq=%22clean+shirt%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Hze3Ur3IGo-MyAHB5YDgDA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22clean%20shirt%22&f=false


I found some more clips that I haven't sifted through by searching for
"clean sliirt" to account for transcription errors.


On Sat, Dec 21, 2013 at 5:03 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Period language in "12 Years a Slave": "soft soap",
> "clean
>               shirt"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 12/21/2013 05:34 PM, Ben Zimmer wrote:
> >On Twitter, Nancy Friedman noted "a jarring 'OK' in an 1841 scene":
> >
> >https://twitter.com/Fritinancy/status/401848725644902400
>
> I was jarred by that, but forgot it later.  It's hard for me to take
> notes in the dark, and I trust no one will comment on my memory.  But
> if that plus perhaps "clean shirt" [is anyone mining for that?] is
> all there is, I congratulate McQueen, Pitt, the other producers, and
> the screenwriters.
>
> Joel
>
>
> >Benjamin Schmidt, who has been analyzing the script for anachronisms
> >using Google Ngram data, thinks that the "OK" line was ad-libbed.
> >
> >--bgz
> >
> >On Sat, Dec 21, 2013 at 11:34 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> > >
> > > To comment on only the language used in "12 Years a Slave", there was
> > > just one scene where my ears pricked up:
> > >
> > > "soft soap" ("to flatter"; the OED2 definition needs some
> > > expansion).  OED2 has in 1840, and 1843 from Bartlett's _Dict. of
> > > Americanisms_.
> > >
> > > "[come in with a] clean shirt" (morally or ethically spotless).  Not
> > > in OED yet!?  (Although my meagre printed resources and a very
> > > superficial Google search also don't turn this up -- have I created
> > > something out of whole cloth?)
> > >
> > > Solomon Northup was kidnapped in 1841, and published his memoir in
> > > 1853.   So "soft soap" is possible, and in fact it appears in an 1855
> > > edition of "Twelve Years a Slave" (GBooks, full view).
> > >
> > > "Clean shirt" doesn't appear (in that edition).  When did it arise in
> > > the sense I am supposing?
> > >
> >
> >------------------------------------------------------------
> >The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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