More bad (and I mean bad) language from olden days.

Fri Dec 4 15:16:58 UTC 2009

The quote was attributed, by the 14-year-old victim, to a
16-year-old African-American defendant in a trial for attempted rape in
Currituck Co., N.C., in September, 1865.  The defendant's conviction
resulted, perhaps surprisingly, in a sentence of just one month in jail.

What may be most startling about the records Lowry has unearthed is the
unusually vivid reminder they provide of just how
inadequate is *literature* as an evocation of past eras.

JL
On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 11:32 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: More bad (and I mean bad) language from olden days.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> So, _cock_ has been used to mean "vagina" for more than a century. Was
> the person who said it from the North or from the South?
>
> -Wilson
>
> On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 1:28 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      More bad (and I mean bad) language from olden days.
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Psychiatrist Dr. Thomas P. Lowry has compiled several ground-breaking
> books
> > on the Civil War based on exhaustive studies of Union court-martial
> records
> > and other government documents in the National Archives. (Records of
> > Confederate court-martials were unfortunately destroyed during the fall
> of
> > Richmond.)
> >
> > By focusing on the seamy side of the war, Lowry's books, _The Story the
> > Soldiers Wouldn't Tell_ and _Tarnished Eagles_, prove that humans were
> every
> > bit as sick and obnoxious back during the War Between the States as they
> are
> > now. They include numerous verbatim exx. of language that nice people
> like
> > Julia Ward Howe never used, at least in print.  Lowry's latest book,
> _Sexual
> > Misbehavior in the Civil War_, gives even more exx. worthy of
> > lexicographical notice.  "Victorianism"?  These mid-19th C. speakers
> never
> > heard of it.
> >
> > Lowry scrupulously refers each and every quotation to a specific record
> in
> > the National Archives, so Jesse's team of verifiers should be able to
> > confirm precise dates and details. I note nearly a hundred citations of
> > lexicographical interest, most of them antedatings of entries in OED and
> > HDAS by many decades.
> >
> > The following astonishingly sample, all from _Sexual Misbehavior_, should
> be
> > dated to "1861-65" unless otherwise noted.  They reveal a world more like
> > _From Here to Eternity_ than like _The Red Badge of Courage_. Dr. Lowry
> > deserves our thanks for helping to set the historical record straight.
> >
> > P. 132 [1865]: "Let me put my prick in your cock." (Vagina.)
> >
> > P. 134 [1864-65]: "He put his pecker right into me."
> >
> > P. 156 [1863-65]: "[He asked her for] "some skin....a pretty question to
> ask
> > a married woman."
> >
> > P. 189: "They...made him jerk himself off, made him come his oats."
> >
> > P. 193 [1863]: "I am in a bad way in regard to my eyes...jacking off is
> the
> > sole cause of my disease."
> >
> > P. 193 [1864]: "Boys, there are loose women there where you're going
> ashore.
> > If the doctor would recommend it, I'd let you go ashore and get your
> > lanyards greased."
> >
> > P. 202 [1864]: "He...asked me to dub him off. He meant that I should take
> > hold of his prick and jerk him off."
> >
> > P. 213 [1864]: "[He] asked me to let him go up my grummet."
> >
> > P. 234 [1862]: "[You] fuck ass....[You] good for nothing loafer."
> >
> > P. 235: "A Goddamned nigger fuck faced son of a bitch."
> >
> > P. 236: "You make me walk too fast. My bollocks pain me, you fuck with my
> > bollocks."
> >
> > P. 237: "[Sergeant, you are] a damned old bugger, a cock sucker, and a
> > bloody English Orangeman."
> >
> > P. 237: "[This breakfast is] a damned cock sucking mess."
> >
> > P. 238 [1862]: "Tell him to shove it. Tell him to kiss my Goddamn royal
> > star-spangled jolly old arsehold [sic]."
> >
> > P. 239: "I advise you to have the top of your head taken off, the
> contents
> > removed, and have some sensible man shit in it."
> >
> > P. 242 [1865]: "His flying jib-boom was as stiff as you please/ Which
> > brought up in the stern of the clipper Louise."
> >
> > P. 246 [1865, personal letter]: "Oh say, how's your machine and do you
> ever
> > get it greased? My pushing pole is all hunky. Boy, I had the best fuck
> while
> > in Troy that I ever had in my life. I guess you will get your gudgeon
> > greased pretty often. Did you say those folks were on it?...I would give
> > much more to go up Susie's flue this morning....Oh you dirty devil...you
> > would beat your meat for 35 cents."
> >
> > P. 250 [advertising circular]: "French patent safes, French ticklers, and
> > French caps."
> >
> >
> > Perhaps Lowry's most interesting find - though it's hard to pick just
> one:
> >
> > P. 233 [1865-66]: "President Johnson, you are a mother fucking son of a
> > bitch."
> >
> >
> >
> > And the Word of the Decade, 1860-70:
> >
> > P. 63: [A case of] fornycaboogry.
> >
> >
> > JL
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
>
> --
> -Wilson
> –––
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> –Mark Twain
>
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>

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