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

Sun Dec 6 10:57:19 UTC 2009

I remember from my boarding school days in Milwaukee--all Lutheran
boys mostly with German or Scandinavian names--that "prick" was the
term of opprobrium of choice.  I don't recall hearing it much after
that, until I was learning Swedish about ten years ago and learned
that in Swedish "prick" simply meant "boy."  Pure coincidence, I'm
sure.

Herb

On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 10:36 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.
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>  _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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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