Cure for Bad Language

[Herb Stahlke]

Probably a precursor to "Things aren't the way they used to be, and
probably never were."

Herb

On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 12:04 AM, 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: Cure for Bad Language
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> As the ancient Greeks are supposed to have said (can't remember where
> or when I read this and it's never quite struck me as something the
> Greeks would have said, true though it be), "*All* days are good, when
> they're old."
>
> -Wilson
>
> On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 10:40 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:      Re: Cure for Bad Language
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Yeah, ISTR reading about that stuff but the implications didn't fully sink
>> in. I think it may have been publicized during the Cummins Prison Farm
>> expose' around 1970.  Maryland, of course, despite being North of D.C., was
>> a slave state right to the end.  When (white) troops from Massachusetts
>> marched through Baltimore at the beginning of the Civil War, a mob stoned
>> them.
>>
>> Flogging was abolished in the U.S. Navy and Merchant Marine in 1850, but no=
>> t
>> till 1862 in the Army and Marines. Figure that one out!  Of course it was
>> only for enlisted men.
>> Almost as soon as the practice was gone, Congressmen were writing bills to
>> have it reintroduced.
>>
>> Even in World War I, British soldiers could still be "crucified" on a wagon
>> wheel for many hours for drunkenness.
>>
>> "The Good Old Days": there weren't any!!!
>>
>> JL
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 8:33 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: Cure for Bad Language
>>>
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
>> ------
>>>
>>> OT comment. Apparently, not with enough horror, since scourging was
>>> used in state prisons as far into the North as Maryland as late as the
>>> 'Fifties, against black prisoners, at least. (It's amazing what can be
>>> learned by merely browsing the stack [sic] of a library like Harvard's
>>> Widener.) The photo showed a black prisoner stripped to the waist with
>>> his hands tied above his head to the arms of a Y-shaped whipping post.
>>> I didn't read the book, so I have no idea what constituted an offense
>>> punishable by scourging or whether white prisoners were also subjected
>>> to this in-the '50's?-in-the-US?-surely-you-jest! form of punishment.
>>>
>>> -Wilson
>>>
>>> On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 10:25 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:      Cure for Bad Language
>>> >
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
>> ------
>>> >
>>> >  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. H=
>> ow
>>> > often this punishment was meted out is not indicated, but the threat mu=
>> st
>>> > 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=3D0lowAAAAIAAJ&pg=3DPT518&dq=3D%22whig+a=
>> lmanac%22+1848&lr=3D#v=3Dsnippet&q=3Dpunishments&f=3Dfalse
>>> >
>>> > (N.b., "language," not "grammar.")
>>> >
>>> > JL
>>> > --
>>> > "There You Go Again...Using Reason on the Planet of the Duck-Billed
>>> > Platypus"
>>> >
>>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> > 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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