----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Sullivan" <
DJ-Anonyme@webtv.net> To: <
rara-avis@icomm.ca> Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 2:13
PM Subject: RARA-AVIS: words you now can say on TV, at least
on cable
> I heard someone commenting on all of the "dirty
words" on Deadwood.
He
> wasn't disapproving, actually said he found them
amusing, but claimed
> they were not historically accurate for the 1870s.
He specifically
> listed fuck, cunt, cocksucker and "cutting the
cheese." Now I know
fuck
> goes back further than this. The earliest use of
cunt I know of is in
> Jelly Roll Morton's 1928 recording of Murder Ballad,
but it didn't
sound
> like he was making up a new word, so I'm sure it's
much older than
that.
> Although it's been some time since I've read it, I
seem to remember
Jack
> Black (no, not the one in Tenacious D, who reign
supreme, and School
of
> Rock) using cocksucker in I Can't Win. Wasn't that
from the early
20th
> century? Plus I've got to figure that if cowboys
were paying for it
in
> whorehouses, they had to have a name for it. I have
no idea how old
> "cut the cheese" is.
>
> Anyway, I was wondering if anyone had a slang
dictionary that might
> gives dates for when these words entered the
language.
>
> Mark
I don't know about "cut the cheese" or "cocksucker" but
you'll find the other words, IIRC, "fuck" "cunt" and, indeed
"cock" in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. (I think the Pardoner's
Tale may be where you can find some of these words in use.)
The words weren't new in Chaucer's time, either. These are
the original Anglo-Saxon words replaced in "polite" society
by Latin or French words. (Fuck/fornicate; cock/penis;
cunt/vagina). Likewise "shit" & "piss" were the original
Anglo-Saxon words replaced, again, in polite society by
"defecate" and "urinate" as all bodily functions were
similarly euphemised*.Polite people
(descendants of the French speaking Norman rulers of England,
presumably) don't sweat but "perspire" (like ladies in my
childhood). And for polite people who cant bring them selves
to call a fuck a fuck, there's always that polite euphemism,
"four letter Anglo-Saxon word".
Rene
*Not too sure if that's a real word but I guess people know
what I mean.
-- # Plain ASCII text only, please. Anything else won't show up. # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 09 May 2004 EDT