On Dateline NBC last night, they were interviewing a woman in her 70’s or 80’s about a suspicious neighbor. Her response:
“And I said, this looks exactly like the van that’s been over in that yard for about a week. And you know, I had, excuse my language, but I had a gut feeling, you know, that that was it.”
How is “gut feeling” offensive language? I never heard my grandparents throw that qualifier out there for that one, and they used “excuse my language” pretty regularly. The woman in question was from Florida.
Does anyone have relatives that considered that term bad language? Is it a Florida thing? (My grandparents were from Oklahoma).
For the lady’s age, I would guess that “gut” was simply considered vulgar. I’m pretty sure that outside specific jargon where it might have a technical menaing, “gut” was one of the words that [ sotto voce ] One Did Not Say In Polite Company [ /sotto voce ]. It was probably a legacy of Victorian speech patterns. Belly and butt would have been other words that were not polite.
Perhaps she didn’t want to say aloud that she didn’t like the skin color of the people driving the van and that was what she was really referring to. I’ve seen old people do this and it takes several minutes to figure out that they don’t want to mention race.
No, people older than me (I’m in my 50s) often thought “gut” or “guts” was vulgar. You even had football coaches using the term “intestinal fortitude” as a substitute – partly as a joke, but also partly because “guts” was not a word you used in polite company.
I had a “black” elementary teacher back in the day that found “belly” to be an extremely offensive word. To the point that I think only the N word could have bothered her more.
What made it even odder, is that besides that, she didnt come off as one of those obsessively proper little old ladies from the south.
Bowels was probably the most polite word in use at that time. With the rise of “intestinal” and the assocaiton with “bowel movement,” Bowel has probably shifted into the category of “not really proper outside a clinical situation.”
You can find a number of references to the bowels as the seat of emotions in classical literature.
I once had a mature female doctor, of all people, who wanted to ask about my bowel movements, asking me if I had ‘gone to the toilet with paper’. I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. This was in the early 80s, in the UK.
So I guess any reference to bodily functions, for ‘some’ people of a certain age, is a no-no.
My Annotated Christmas Carol says the bowels were at one time believed to be the source of compassion. It gives the example of 1 John 3:17 (KJV) - “But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels [of compassion] from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?”
The word/phrase for “of compassion” is not in the Greek. The Greek for “bowels” is.
Here are the OED’s two earliest cites for this sense.
Correct answer, then, would have been “Yup, got through all of the Sun and half of the Racing Post.”
I think there was, in the past, quite a lot of prudery about mentioning parts of the body in polite company. After all, bodies are made of flesh, and flesh equals SIN! I seem to recall a sketch by Harry Enfield (?) that touched on this, with a prim and proper wife of a certain age berating his husband for complaining of a stomach ache or something: “Roy, you WILL not mention body parts in public…”
This is weird, 'cause yesterday I was watching a DVD of an Australian soap opera Prisoner (Called Prisoner: Cell Block H elsewhere), said “Top Dog” Bea Smith the same thing “just a gut feeling” to “evil” warder Joan and Joan says “OK Smith, you’re on a charge, let’s see the governor.” Bea says “What for?” And Joan says “offensive language.”
So “gut” must be a little more than impoliet, at least by 1980s TV standards in Australia.
I remember being scolded as a child for saying this other kid was gutless. This was in the late 60’s and I was told by an adult to instead say he had no backbone.
So, yeah, at one time gut or guts was considered impolite wordage.
To which I respond :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:!!!
