# Question about historical cuss words, in English **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 21, 2006, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-historical-cuss-words-in-english/341029 "2006-01-21T21:18:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Zabali\_Clawbane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ecd19e/32.png) [@Zabali\_Clawbane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zabali_Clawbane)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2006, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-historical-cuss-words-in-english/341029/21 "2006-01-23T17:14:31Z")
If it’s set within Victorian times, you might find a few expressions “rough” sorts would use on [this](http://www.victorianlondon.org/) page. Look in the “crime” section. ---
**Author:** ![Zabali\_Clawbane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ecd19e/32.png) [@Zabali\_Clawbane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zabali_Clawbane)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2006, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-historical-cuss-words-in-english/341029/22 "2006-01-23T17:18:23Z")
Pardon me, that would be the section titled “Words and Phrases” -\> “criminal slang”, not the “crime section”. :o I’m giving the link, in the hopes that maybe it goes back just far enough to be of use to you. Maybe the person who operates the site would know where you could look to find such things though, if not? ---
**Author:** ![Zabali\_Clawbane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ecd19e/32.png) [@Zabali\_Clawbane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zabali_Clawbane)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2006, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-historical-cuss-words-in-english/341029/23 "2006-01-23T17:23:49Z")
Also, you say English, do you mean British English, or American English? The slang would be different depending on country of origin. ---
**Author:** ![Rodd\_Hill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/3ab097/32.png) [@Rodd\_Hill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodd_Hill)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2006, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-historical-cuss-words-in-english/341029/24 "2006-01-23T22:33:55Z")
Re: Shakespeare’s arses; \*\*Cibber! write all thy verses upon glasses, The only way to save 'em from our arses. \*\* _Alexander Pope_ (attributed), in reference to Colley Cibber, Poet Laureate 1730-57. Note that within 30 years of Shakespeare’s time, “arses” and “glasses” are rhymed by Pope (who was born in 1688). Now, either he put a “cockney” pronounciation on “glasses” (“glarses”), or intended “arses” to read as “asses.” If the latter, it may just be poetic licence for the sake of a good scan. Partidge is the man you want for historic slang, vulgarity and swearing. Try and get a used copy of his “Dictionary of Historical Slang,” published in paperback by Penguin in the 1970s. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2006, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-historical-cuss-words-in-english/341029/25 "2006-01-23T22:41:40Z")
Not saying you’re wrong, but I can only find four references to that line on ye olde interwebbe, and they’re all from the attribution given in a single book, published in 1954, at which time the Southern England accent would have rhymed those two words. (Of course I haven’t read the book, either.) ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2006, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-historical-cuss-words-in-english/341029/26 "2006-01-23T23:44:02Z")
> [@Rodd Hill](#): > > _Alexander Pope_ (attributed), in reference to Colley Cibber, Poet Laureate 1730-57. > > Note that within 30 years of Shakespeare’s time, “arses” and “glasses” are rhymed by Pope (who was born in 1688). Thirty years? More like a 130 years. Shakespeare died in 1616. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2006, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-historical-cuss-words-in-english/341029/27 "2006-01-24T00:06:59Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > I do not know how accurate was G.B. Shaw’s claim in Joan of Arc that the French ever called the English “goddams,” but the claim has a plausible ring to it. Interesting. I have also read of Indians in the 19th century American southwest referring to Anglos as “goddams.” ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2006, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-historical-cuss-words-in-english/341029/28 "2006-01-24T00:30:51Z")
American writer Washington Irving was amused by a boy street peddler in Europe who tried to his attention with “God damn!” ---
**Author:** ![Ghanima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Ghanima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ghanima)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2006, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-historical-cuss-words-in-english/341029/29 "2006-01-24T00:47:23Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > I recommend [The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue](http://www.blackmask.com/books82c/dcvgr.htm#1_0_5). No etymology included, but it’s indicative of the common language then, and as a bonus is very entertaining. Particularly “a nasty name for a nasty thing”. Thank you for adding “He will never shite a seamen’s turd!” to my list of insults. ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2006, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-historical-cuss-words-in-english/341029/30 "2006-01-24T02:14:46Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Just a number of scattered incidents of usage I’ve encountered over the years (that I failed to document or investigate until it seemed that they had reached a critical mass in my memory) in which the earliest examples of using “fuck” as an epithet or “fuck you” as a curse appeared, in retrospect, to have been uttered by Irish. > > As I said, it is pretty much a WAG that I _cannot_ (at this time) support. I mentioned it here mostly to see if I could tease out either a confirmation or correction from anyone else. It is not a position I would attempt to defend. > > (The rest of my earlier post stands, however.) I’d be more inclined to think it came from the English, because the pronunciation is more similar. In any American dialect I can think of, the vowel is unrounded, like in the English. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2006, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-historical-cuss-words-in-english/341029/31 "2006-01-24T02:19:50Z")
I’ll try to post an intelligent reply to **tom’s** statements a bit later tonight. If you don’t have Jesse Sheidlower’s excellent paperback, _The F Word_, you should get it. Jesse is the North American guy in charge of the OED and one of the brightest guys in the field today. His book is comprehensive and the best out there on the dates/origins/meanings of the word. Tune in a bit later… I’m playing catch up here. ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2006, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-historical-cuss-words-in-english/341029/32 "2006-01-24T22:56:56Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > I’ll try to post an intelligent reply to **tom’s** statements a bit later tonight. If you don’t have Jesse Sheidlower’s excellent paperback, _The F Word_, you should get it. Jesse is the North American guy in charge of the OED and one of the brightest guys in the field today. His book is comprehensive and the best out there on the dates/origins/meanings of the word. > > Tune in a bit later… I’m playing catch up here. Heh-hem. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-historical-cuss-words-in-english/341029/33 "2006-01-25T03:48:59Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > I have not been able to document this, for example, but my strong impression has been that “fuck” did not enter American English as an epithet until it was brought back with returning doughboys from WWI and it seems that they picked it up from Irish troops in the British Army. (This also suggests that the usage arose in Ireland early in the 20th century, since it does not appear to have come over to the U.S. with the great Irish migrations of the 19th century.) On the other hand, my inability to document this leaves it in the realm of wild speculation. Sheidlower cites “I don’t give a fuck” and such from the late 1800’s, attibuted to English writers. It does seem to show up in the US later, WWI. 1800’s examples of expressions such as “what the fuck!” are from English sources. As an interjection it doesn’t seem to appear much before WWI, and in the US. “Mr. Baker replied that deponent would be fucked out of his money by Mr. Brown” is in a court document from the 1860’s/US. There isn’t much that would lend credence to tom’s theory about the Irish in WWI. But again, trying to find enough early printed cites for the word is difficult at best. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-historical-cuss-words-in-english/341029/34 "2006-01-25T04:03:21Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > “Mr. Baker replied that deponent would be fucked out of his money by Mr. Brown” is in a court document from the 1860’s/US. I wonder, in all seriousness, whether the court record actually says “sucked out of his money”, with a [long s](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s) written in cursive hand being misread as an “f” by modern eyes. ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-historical-cuss-words-in-english/341029/35 "2006-01-25T20:21:10Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > I wonder, in all seriousness, whether the court record actually says “sucked out of his money”, with a [long s](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s) written in cursive hand being misread as an “f” by modern eyes. “Sucked out of his money” doesn’t sound like a useful expression. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-historical-cuss-words-in-english/341029.md?page=1)