SPUD acroetymythology (1927)

[Jonathan Lighter]

The _Proceedings of the Old Bailey_ site publishes trials from 1679 to 1834.

A search reveals 45 exx. of the phrase "carnal knowledge" and none of "unlawful carnal knowledge."

Curiously, no exx. of "carnal knowledge" are findable after 1791.

JL

"Mullins, Bill" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Mullins, Bill"
Subject: Re: SPUD acroetymythology (1927)
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>
> Berkeley Campus Faces New Period of Tension WILLIAM TROMBLEY
> Los Angeles Times; Apr 18, 1965; pg. 3 col 3 "The acting
> chancellor permitted sale of the magazine (though he has
> continued to ban sale of a one-act play titled "For Unlawful
> Carnal Knowledge.")"


The play in question appears to have been written by Richard
Schmorleitz and published in 1965 (per WorldCat). He was a
big wheel in the Berkeley Free Speech movement.

A band called Coven released an album called Witchcraft in 1970,
with a track called "For unlawful carnal knowledge".

The phrase itself ("for unlawful carnal knowledege"), taken literally,
and without seeming to imply the F-word (as seen in the cites above)
seems to come from the British Empire. Hein Online's first literal
cites for it come from The South African Law Journal (1929), The
Melbourne
University Law Review (1961 - 1962). The first literal US cite Hein has
is from the Tulane Law Review (1967 1968), and then the Tennessee Law
Review (1970 - 1971).

There used to be a full-text searchable archive of the proceedings of
the Old Bailey,

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