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

Sun Dec 6 03:36:26 UTC 2009

 _Cock_ for "vagina" is *still* the "standard" term in BE. And the old
anecdote to the effect that, during the Carter Presidency,
(presumably) white Georgians joked that Yankees couldn't tell men from
women permits the inference that "cock" for "vagina" is at least
familiar to, if not ordinarily used by, some white Southerners. OTOH,
that the boy used "prick" catches me by surprise, if the victim's
entire utterance is a quote from her attacker. I know "prick" only as
a literary term or a term of opprobrium used by white people. But
then, there's the case of the black blues-singer from the '20's or
'30's referring by "blue balls" to what I knew only as "lover's nuts"
till I was in my '30's. I had heard the term used only by white guys,
but, even then, so rarely, that I had never even concerned myself with
its meaning. I would have bet money that black people had *never* used
it. Till only a couple of months ago, when I heard that record.

As for the sentence, amazingly trivial, even - or especially - for
those days, some WAG's are that the girl wasn't a virgin, had a "bad
reputation," had "asked for it," or she was poor and of no account,
whereas the boy's boss-man - a euphemism that still means,
essentially, "owner" - was wealthy, held high social status, and
didn't care to have his "people" messed with by "trash."

FWIW, in my lost youth, the enjoyment of um-literarature was spoiled
by the the near-universal, standard use of "cock" for "penis" by its
authors, this use something that I'd never encountered before I'd
reached my early twenties. (In Saint Louis, porn was harder to acquire
than heroin, if you were under 21.) It was worse than trying to read
authors who used "dry" to mean "wet" or "high" to mean "low."

-Wilson

On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 10:16 AM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: More bad (and I mean bad) language from olden days.
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> 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
>> -----------------------
>> > 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 the=
> y
>> 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 an=
> d
>> > HDAS by many decades.
>> >
>> > The following astonishingly sample, all from _Sexual Misbehavior_, shou=
> ld
>> be
>> > dated to "1861-65" unless otherwise noted.  They reveal a world more li=
> ke
>> > _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 t=
> o
>> 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 ta=
> ke
>> > 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 giv=
> e
>> > much more to go up Susie's flue this morning....Oh you dirty devil...yo=
> u
>> > would beat your meat for 35 cents."
>> >
>> > P. 250 [advertising circular]: "French patent safes, French ticklers, a=
> nd
>> > 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
>> =96=96=96
>> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"=96=96a strange complaint t=
> o
>> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>> =96Mark Twain
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>
> --=20
> "There You Go Again...Using Reason on the Planet of the Duck-Billed
> Platypus"
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> 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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