shit! (coarse exclamation of annoyance or disgust)

[Joel S. Berson]

At 9/4/2010 06:29 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>Wow!

Undsoubtedly shit, but does a "s--t" qualify for the OED and the HDAS?

Joel


>Of course, only a lexicographer would say that. All others would
>yawn. Didn't the Venerable Bede say that in informal moments?
>
>They certainly say similar things in _Beowulf and Grendel_ (2005).
>Concerning Grendel, Hrothgar laments, "He's a fucking troll! How do I know
>why a fucking troll does what a fucking troll does?"
>
>JL
>
>On Sat, Sep 4, 2010 at 1:25 PM, George Thompson
><george.thompson at nyu.edu>wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
> > Subject:      shit! (coarse exclamation of annoyance or disgust)
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > The OED has this from 1920 (Joyce's Ulysses).
> >
> > An article in the journal Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game has an
> > article by John Thorn, "Origins of the New York Game" (vol. 3, #2, Fall,
> > 2009).  He discusses certain of the rules laid down by the Knickerbocker
> > Base Ball Club in the mid 19th C.
> >
> > "[Rule] 17.  All disputes and differences relative to the game, to be
> > decided by the Umpire, from which there is no appeal."  Thorn remarks "A
> > rule observed largely in the breach, ever since umpire Eugene
> Plunkett fined
> > Ebenezer R. Dupignac six cents "for saying s--t.""
> > Footnote 33 cites the Game Books of the Knickerbocker Club, now in the New
> > York Public Library, and gives the date April 26, 1849.
> >
> > The passage quoted appears on page 116; footnote 33 on p. 124.
> >
> > GAT
> >
> > George A. Thompson
> > Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> > Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
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> >
>
>
>
>--
>"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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