another Civil War-era F-word discovery

[Jonathan Lighter]

Brilliant, Ben. Thanks for posting.

JL

On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 12:53 AM, Ben Zimmer
<bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      another Civil War-era F-word discovery
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> In 2006, Jon Lighter made an important discovery -- a use of "fucked
> up" in an 1863 court-martial record:
>
>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0608A&L=ADS-L&D=0&I=-3&P=11543&F=P
>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0707C&L=ADS-L&D=0&I=-3&P=3801&F=P
>
> The use was confirmed by the OED and now is included as the first cite
> for sense 1 (with the meaning 'ruined, broken; of poor quality, awful;
> messed-up'). According to JL, the next known use is from 1929.
>
> Now comes word of another surprisingly early use of "fucked up", from
> an 1865 letter to Andrew Johnson. Greg Downs sends along this example
> appearing in _The Papers of Andrew Johnson, Vol. 8_, ed. by Paul
> Bergeron, p. 457:
>
> -----
> Mr Johnson
> New York July 24/65
> Dear. Sir
> You fucked up Son of a Bitch! If you dont let Jeff go I will Be at
> your house in less than 24 Ours and Dan me if you dont get hin of I
> will Blow your dan Brains out You Son of a Bitch
>
> Yours Truly
> Mr Brown
>
> To president Andrew Johnson
> -----
>
> The volume is in Google Books
> (http://books.google.com/books?id=c95JSzYD3E0C) but it's in Limited
> Preview and that page isn't visible, unfortunately.
>
> Not only is this example significant for corroborating the Civil
> War-era usage, but it also is notable for the human target of the
> insult: "fucked up" modifies "son of a bitch", rather than something
> inanimate or corporate, such as "company" (in the 1863 example). One
> could even argue that this falls under OED sense 2 ("of a person:
> confused; mentally disturbed, insane..."), for which the earliest cite
> is from 1945. Then again, it's really Mr. Brown and not Mr. Johnson
> who is revealed to be confused and mentally disturbed here (despite
> the courteous "yours truly"). Takes one to know one, I suppose?
>
> --bgz
>
> --
> Ben Zimmer
> http://benzimmer.com/
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org