Campish

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>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.'"

So the word was transcribed "crawfish" from a handwritten letter. Is it
then reasonable to think it likely that the handwriting of the original
letter was less than perfectly unambiguous? Is it possible to see the
letter itself? Of course for all I know it did say "campish" ... or
"crawfish" for that matter. But since I do not believe either of these
words fits the context well, I am not yet convinced. Pending review of the
original manuscript, I can think of a few alternative readings which might
be considered.

Is there any single known instance of "campish" used like this otherwise,
anywhen close to 1868?

[A comparison: I recently reviewed a handwritten document from 1837 in
which the word "okayed" purportedly appeared. The appearance of the cursive
word was indeed consistent with the anachronistic reading "okayed" ... but
it was also consistent IMHO with the word "charged" ... which word IMHO fit
the context at least as well, even aside from the anachronism.]

-- Doug Wilson