(Reinstated) Earliest Version of "Motherf*cker / Motherf*cking"

[Laurence Horn]

On Mar 25, 2013, at 11:33 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

> Not so curious -- just another long S confusion.  Think "The Vicar of Dibley".
>
> Joel

Right, but consider the possibility that "motherfucker" arose in the first place as a misreading of the mocking but not obscenely offensive "mothersucker" (or "mammysucking" > "mammyfucking"), all because of those d----d long S's.

LH
>
> At 3/25/2013 11:01 AM, Shapiro, Fred wrote:
>> (I use * in this message to try to avoid its being blocked by
>> people's e-mail systems.)
>>
>> The earliest version of "motherf*cker" or "motherf*cking" in OED is
>> from an 1889 Texas judicial opinion, contributed by me (if you look
>> at my Wikipedia biography, you would think this kind of thing is the
>> main focus of my researches).
>>
>> I have now found an earlier citation, again from those colorful
>> late-19th-century Texas courts:
>>
>> 1888 _Reports of Cases Argued and Adjudged in the Court of Appeals
>> of Texas_ XXV. 435  Ridge passed on up the street, and Crisman again
>> remarked that whoever fired that shot at him was a "mammy f-----g
>> son of a bitch."
>>
>> Curiously, the following citation appears two pages later:
>>
>> 1888 _Reports of Cases Argued and Adjudged in the Court of Appeals
>> of Texas_ XXV. 437  He heard Crisman say, and repeat, two or three
>> times, that "Whoever he is, he is a God d----d mammy sucking son of a bitch."
>>
>> Fred Shapiro
>> Editor
>> YALE BOOK OF QUOTATIONS (Yale University Press)
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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