19th Century Profanity

[jsc1953]

In the Cafe Society thread about the new HBO series Deadwood, a lot of the discussion involves the use of profanity, and whether it’s authentic. I thought I’d pull that discussion out and start a separate thread.

Given that the obscenity laws of the time would prohibit any written descriptions, how would we know anything about profanity in the 19th (or earlier) century? Do we know how prevalent it was – did men curse in the company of other men? In mixed company? Did it vary by social class?

And do we know what constituted cursing? If a contemporary description of mining camp life says that the profanity was overwhelming prevalent – how do we know that they didn’t consider “goddam” to be mind-blowingly obscene?

[kellner]

@jsc1953

Given that the obscenity laws of the time would prohibit any written descriptions, how would we know anything about profanity in the 19th (or earlier) century?

I guess that we can learn a lot from writings that were never officially published at the time like letters, diaries and manuscripts. Apart from that there might be documentation of specific cases of censorship or trials and I doubt that censorship was 100 percent effective anyway.

Did it vary by social class?

Figure of speech like the german cursing like a menial coachman suggest that it was at least perceived that way.

[jsc1953]

@kellner

Figure of speech like the german cursing like a menial coachman suggest that it was at least perceived that way.

Interesting…the equivalent of the English “swearing like a sailor”.

[dolphinboy]

Fresh Air, the NPR Radio Program, just aired an interview of the producer of Deadwood David Mirch (?) and Terry Gross (the host) asked him this very question.

To paraphase his answer, after a year’s worth of research they were able to verify that the language used in the show was absolutely accurate to the times, and that due to the lack of law in Deadwood that cursing acted as a way to diffuse tense situations.

How they know this for sure he didn’t say, but he said that everyone talked that way… at least in this particular community… at this particular time.

[Jplacer]

As my 101-year old grandmother says “He curses like a drunken boatsman”

[samclem]

@dolphinboy

Fresh Air, the NPR Radio Program, just aired an interview of the producer of Deadwood David Mirch (?) and Terry Gross (the host) asked him this very question.

To paraphase his answer, after a year’s worth of research they were able to verify that the language used in the show was absolutely accurate to the times, and that due to the lack of law in Deadwood that cursing acted as a way to diffuse tense situations.

How they know this for sure he didn’t say, but he said that everyone talked that way… at least in this particular community… at this particular time.

If that’t truly the substance of what Milch said in the interview, then he’s full of shit. Sure–they cursed and were profane, just as Roman soldiers were. But if he’s trying to tell you that his researches proved that all of the curses they used in that show were conterporarily used, then he’s blowing smoke out his ass.

There’s just no way that he found uses of “shitfaced” and other modern expressions in print at that time.

Again, I’m sure that he’s correct if he’s only suggesting that they cursed a lot and were profane. But don’t try to pin down the actual words/phrases.