Campish

[Kathleen E. Miller]

On Tue, 8 Jul 2003, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:

  > >1868 Frederick Park _Letter_ Nov. in Jonathan Ned Katz _Love Stories_ 193
  > >[My] campish undertakings are not at present meeting with the success they
  > >deserve.
  >
  > Is there any context which would indicate unequivocally and precisely what
  > "campish" meant here?

Fred Shapiro wrote:

  I returned the Katz book and thus don't have it to refer to.  I don't
  think Katz gave context, but he is very careful about terminology and if
  he associates "campish" with "camp" I assume he has good reason for doing
  so.



Jonathan Ned Katz, Love Stories: Sex Between Men Before Homosexuality. The
University of Chicago Press, July 2003. (paperback) just happened to be in
Safire's in-box yesterday.

pg. 192 - 193

"The American's precious literary style suggests that a group of men were,
by 1870, already constructing a distinctive, still secret, subcultural mode
of speech, now known as 'camp.' That word itself was actually used in a
letter that Boulton's cross-dressing friend, Frederick Park, wrote in
November 1868 to Boulton's 'husband,' Lord Arthur Clinton. In this missive,
Park hoped that he would live to a 'green old age,' but bemoaned the great
amount of makeup it would take 'to hide that very unbecoming tint.' Park
then immediately complained that his 'campish undertakings are not at
present meeting with the success they deserve.' This is the earliest-known
use of 'campish' among men-lusting men. The word's historical documentation
helps to bring a formerly hidden subculture to light."

Footnote: "Park to Lord Arthur Clinton, November 1868, quoted by Upchurch
'Forgetting,' from the trial transcripts of the 1871 Case of the Queen vs.
Boutlon and Others, Department of Public Records, PRO, London, DDP4/6,
1:36-37; also quoted by [Cohen, William A. Sex Scandal:The Private Parts of
Victorian Fiction, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996.] 116n 26: Cohen
quotes from the London Times, May 30, 1870. Cohen also notes that when this
letter was read into the Boulton and Park trial record the court
transcriber misread 'campish' as 'crawfish.'"



Kathleen E. Miller
Research Assitant to William Safire
The New York Times