More bad (and I mean bad) language from olden days.
Laurence Horn
laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Sun Dec 6 11:43:31 UTC 2009
At 5:57 AM -0500 12/6/09, Herb Stahlke wrote:
>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
Well, in Thai it (or something much like it) means 'chili pepper'.
Coincidence?
LH
>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:
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>-----------------------
>>> 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
>>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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