[Ads-l] "WWII Jets Fly Over Washington"

[Wilson Gray]

On Sat, May 9, 2015 at 8:48 AM, Dave Wilton <dave at wilton.net> wrote:

> Was it current in E. St. L. ca1950?


It was, and is, current everywhere. Remember that Jim Crow was very much
the law of the land, whether de jure or de facto, in 1960. That had a
"chilling effect," to coin a phrase, on "interpersonal relationships," to
coin another. You can "bet your sweet ass," as you people say, that, had I
not been in the Army, where cursing like a trooper is the order of the day,
it would never have occurred to me to use that kind of language in the
presence of The Man, because it would have played into the "They're so
uncouth!" stereotype. As it was, had I not been so accustomed to hearing
and using "fuck over" that it didn't even occur to me that it could
possibly be totally known among a random assortment of white people
gathered from every corner of the United States, I *still* would never have
used it. I was already sufficiently recognizably distinct from everyone
else. There was hardly any need for me to drive the point home by spouting
bizarre, Negro-specific obscenities.

In like manner, when I heard white GI'S using "shat" - as astonishing to me
as "fuck over" was to them - instead of "shitted" - race-neutral in The Lou
- I assumed that it was a jocular neologism that was peculiar to Army
Security Agency in-group jargon.


-- 
-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

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