Cure for Bad Language

[Jonathan Lighter]

 According to _The Whig Almanac_(N.Y.: Greeley & McElrath, 1850), p. 37,
a U.S. Navy sailor could be punished with twelve strokes of the
cat-o'-nine-tails for "improper language." This offense appears to have
been distinct from "insolence," "mutinous language," "contempt," etc. How
often this punishment was meted out is not indicated, but the threat must
have been real enough.

According to the editor, "There is no uniform scale of punishment, and the
descriptions of the offenses are not seldom indefinite; but no one can read
the volume [sc., the report of the Secretary of the Navy] without a feeling
of horror, and a deep sense of the imperfection of the whole scourging
system."

See:

http://books.google.com/books?id=0lowAAAAIAAJ&pg=PT518&dq=%22whig+almanac%22+1848&lr=#v=snippet&q=punishments&f=false

(N.b., "language," not "grammar.")

JL
--
"There You Go Again...Using Reason on the Planet of the Duck-Billed
Platypus"

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