baseball cursing, 1898 (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Laurence Horn]

At 1:10 PM -0600 12/5/07, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC wrote:
>Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
>Caveats: NONE
>
>"Cunnilinctal".
>
>That's a word I'll remember, even though I doubt I'll ever have occasion
>to use it.
>Ever.
>

I always thought the standard adjective was "cunnilinguistic".

LH

>
>>  -----Original Message-----
>>  From: American Dialect Society
>>  [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Jonathan Lighter
>>  Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2007 8:30 AM
>>  To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>  Subject: Re: baseball cursing, 1898
>>
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>  -----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
>>  Subject:      Re: baseball cursing, 1898
>>  --------------------------------------------------------------
>>  -----------------
>>
>>  "Dog" used as a strong insult leads me to prefer an earlier
>>  date, ca1898, than a later one.as So does the absence of both
>>  the f-word as an intensive adj. or adv. and of the mf-word in
>>  any form.
>>
>>    The prominence of the cunnilinctal participle - very rare
>>  even in WWII accounts - also suggests that the text is
>>  relatively early.
>>
>>    JL
>>
>>
>>
>>  "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET> wrote:
>>    ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>  -----------------------
>>  Sender: American Dialect Society
>>  Poster: "Douglas G. Wilson"
>>  Subject: Re: baseball cursing, 1898
>>  --------------------------------------------------------------
>>  -----------------
>>
>>  > Of course, a joke or hoax from the period is just as useful, for
>>  >present purposes, as an authentic document. How certain is
>>  the dating?
>>  >The document itself does not seem to include a date, though
>>  it refers
>>  >to a November 1897 meeting. It's easy to imagine, for
>>  example, that it
>>  >could have been produced in 1927, with "See how bad things were 30
>>  >years ago?" being part of the joke.
>>  >
>>  >John Baker
>>
>>  ....
>>
>>  >The language is almost certainly authentic for the period, but I
>>  >strongly suspect that the document itself was intended as a joke
>>  >(rather than a "hoax"). No names of "committee members" are
>>  given and
>>  >the document may well be a sub rosa publication.
>>  >
>>  > The unexpected (and for most people unprecedented)
>>  appearance of such
>>  >lurid insults in cold print would, I feel sure, have been
>>  regarded as
>>  >uproariously funny by many young men of the era -
>>  ballplayers included.
>>  >
>>  > JL
>>
>>  This is how it seems to me too: a joke, probably by some
>>  baseball fans with surreptitious access to a printing press,
>>  of indeterminate
>>  date: could be 1898, could be much later as John Baker says.
>>
>>  The lack of specificity in the ostensible authorship ("the
>>  Committee") is suspicious, as JL implies. The lack of any
>>  specification of the intended addressee(s) is also suspicious.
>>
>>  Furthermore, it seems to me that such a document could have
>>  (and if genuine probably would have) conveyed the same
>>  message without any ambiguity using fewer and shorter
>>  examples and using expurgated forms such as "f--k", "c--t",
>>  "c--k", etc. for the most unacceptable words, at the very least.
>>
>>  I agree that the item as it is would have been very appealing
>>  to many young men within my own recollection, probably more
>>  so in earlier decades ... in fact, I believe there might
>>  could be the occasional person even now who would find it a
>>  little bit amusing.
>>
>>  -- Doug Wilson
>>
>>
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>
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