shit! (coarse exclamation of annoyance or disgust)

Mon Sep 6 01:51:06 UTC 2010

> >
GAT: > In the 1950s, if someone knocked over a cup of coffee, one did not
> hear a loud Oh Shit! -- or if one did, it was likely to be followed by an
> embarrassed "Pardon my French".  The Knickerbocker who was fined for saying
> Shit! may not have been directing it at the umpire or expressing displeasure
> at a call.  He might have stubbed his toe on a base.
>
JL: > Very true, but our families may have been atypically prudish. ***

I wasn't thinking of dinner table conversation in the Thompson household, but talk to be heard in public places.  In the dorm rooms of Myles Standish Hall in 1959-1960, one heard all sorts of coarse vulgarity, but these same boys would avoid such talk in public places, and reprove a friend who uttered "shit" audibly in mixed company.
The boys of Myles Standish might have been behind the flood of history in this respect,rather than riding the breaking wave, but surely there was a change in decorum about that time, and a sharp change at that.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

----- Original Message -----
From: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
Date: Sunday, September 5, 2010 12:16 pm
Subject: Re: shit! (coarse exclamation of annoyance or disgust)
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU

> >
> In the 1950s, if someone knocked over a cup of coffee, one did not
> hear a
> loud Oh Shit! -- or if one did, it was likely to be followed by an
> embarrassed "Pardon my French".  The Knickerbocker who was fined for saying
> Shit! may not have been directing it at the umpire or expressing displeasure
> at a call.  He might have stubbed his toe on a base.
>
> Very true, but our families may have been atypically prudish. I can
> tell you
> the exact moment things changed: when I started junior high in September,
> 1959.  Throughout public grade school in NYC I'd heard the  s-word
> and the
> f-word one time each. When I asked a helpful adult what they meant I was
> told they were "horrible, horrible" words that "you must never use."
>
> In (private, all-boy) junior high, it seemed like everybody was using
> the
> f-, s-, c-, d -, sob, mf, etc., words all the time. The cs word was not
> much used for some reason. None of these young chaps had attended my grade
> school, so I have to assume that it was a pretty prissy place.
>
> JL
>
>
> On Sun, Sep 5, 2010 at 12:01 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:      Re: shit! (coarse exclamation of annoyance or disgust)
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > G O'T:
> > Is it possible that the fined player was using the term as a noun?
> >
> > shit, shite, n. 1. b. A contemptuous epithet applied to a person.
> >
> > The first cite in the OED is 1508 for this sense. For example 1886 W.
> > Somerset Word-bk., Shit, a term of contempt. (Very com.) He's a
> > regular shit. Applied to men only.
> >
> > Perhaps Ebenezer R. Dupignac called umpire Eugene Plunkett a "shit"
> > for making a bad call?
> >
> > JL:
> > Garson's suggestion is very reasonable.  Possibly more reasonable, because
> > it would have been a direct challenge to the umpire.
> >
> > GAT:
> > John Thorn has offered to look over his material from the Knickerbocker
> > game books to give us a fuller context, if available, and to make
> sure that
> > earlier instances of a Knickerbocker being fined for improper
> language did
> > not quote the language.
> >
> > Meanwhile:
> > According to the rules and practice of the Knickerbockers, there was
> only
> > one umpire at a game, and he sat in a comfortable chair well off the
> field
> > of play.  He did not call balls & strikes.  The pitcher was supposed
> to toss
> > the ball where the batter could hit it, and only if either the pitcher
> > seemed to be trying to pitch around the batter, or the batter for some
> > reason was refusing to swing at hittable pitches, would the umpire
> start to
> > call balls and strikes.  As far as play on the bases was concerned,
> the
> > Knickerbockers wanted to be gentlemen, and wanted to observe the
> sort of
> > sporting ethic that I believe is still (ideally) in effect in golf and
> > tennis, where a player is expected to turn himself in if he makes a
> mistake
> > that requires a penalty.  So the first baseman and the base runner should
> > both know whether the runner was safe or out, and should agree in
> > acknowledging the result.
> > In addition, there was a principle of decorum that existed into my youth,
> > then disappeared very suddenly, that held that only the uncouth and
> vulgar
> > ever used bad language.  In the 1950s, if someone knocked over a cup
> of
> > coffee, one did not hear a loud Oh Shit! -- or if one did, it was
> likely to
> > be followed by an embarrassed "Pardon my French".  The Knickerbocker
> who was
> > fined for saying Shit! may not have been directing it at the umpire
> or
> > expressing displeasure at a call.  He might have stubbed his toe on
> a base.
> >
> > GAT
> >
> > George A. Thompson
> > Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> > Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Date: Sunday, September 5, 2010 11:04 am
> > Subject: Re: shit! (coarse exclamation of annoyance or disgust)
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >
> > > "Oh, shitte!" appears (in fancifully Elizabethan spelling) in Mark
> > Twain's
> > > "1601" (written ca1880).
> > >
> > > I'm too lazy to check, but I believe that's the earliest unequivocal
> > > ex. in
> > > my files.
> > >
> >
> >  > Regarding a less frequent excremental idiom:
> > >
> > > *1799  *Old Bailey Proceedings*  [
> > > http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/images.jsp?doc=179909110059]:  Now,
> you
> > > sh----n son of a b-----, where is your ten pound duck now?  1938 Ezra
> > > Pound
> > > in Brita Lindberg-Seyersted, ed., *Pound/Ford: The Story of a Literary
> > > Friendship * (N.Y.: New Directions, 1982) 159: It is a shitten outrage
> > > that
> > > Johnnie Adams’ letters are out of print.
> > >
> > > In modern times, this is spelled "shittin'."
> > >
> > > JL
> > >
> > >
> > > On Sun, Sep 5, 2010 at 7:15 AM, Jesse Sheidlower <jester at panix.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > > > -----------------------
> > > > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > > > Poster:       Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM>
> > > > Subject:      Re: shit! (coarse exclamation of annoyance or disgust)
> > > >
> > > >
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > >
> > > > On Sat, Sep 04, 2010 at 09:22:45PM -0400, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> > > > > 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?
> > > >
> > > > Yes.
> > > >
> > > > Jesse Sheidlower
> > > > OED
> > > >
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>
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