English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Robusto

12:03 AM

That's got to be 'shopped.

tchrist

Well, it was in the paper.

Although that was my own first reaction. The one from 1310 would be harder to do that to.

Robusto

Yeah, well, it just seems so unlikely that a copyist would deface a page in that way without inviting serious consequences. Not to say it didn't happen, but it does seem out of character.

That said, there's a lot of shit you can find when you go digging in the old stacks.

When I was an undergraduate I stumbled on evidence that Ben Franklin plagiarized columns from the British magazine The Spectator. It was almost word-for-word, and a little more research turned up more evidence in the fact that the publication of the Spectator occurred before his own publication of the piece in Philadelphia.

I think his paper was the Philadelphia Gazette, but I could be wrong. That was over 30 years ago.

I just looked for it on the Web and came up with this other instance of Franklin's plagiarism, but there's nothing in it about The Spectator.

tchrist

12:21 AM

Interesting.

Cerberus

12:34 AM

@tchrist Haha nice.

tchrist

I knew you would enjoy it.

Cerberus

12:49 AM

> 1535 Lyndesay Satyre 1363 Bischops...may fuck thair fill and be vnmaryit.

> 1680 Rochester Poems on Several Occasions (1950) 30 Through all the Town, the common Fucking Post, On whom each Whore, relieves her tingling Cunt.

> c1888–94 My Secret Life III. 228 This house had but eight rooms, and two mere closets to let out for fucking.

tchrist

Closeted fucking, really? :)

Cerberus

Hypothesis: the word was slightly less vulgar before the 20th century.

tchrist

How come?

Cerberus

Because of those quotations.

In that time, the mere mention of a specific sexual act, and especially this one, was far more taboo than now.

And yet they used fucking, which is now considered far, far worse than copulating.

Even though both words normally mean the same act.

So perhaps they had no other word and fucking was no more vulgar than the deed itself, unlike now.

tchrist

Well, it read 12th at first. :(

I think your hypothesis is disproven by the paucity of written citations.

It was very rare in print before the 20th century, and even then it took a while.

Mitch

1:03 AM

What is it we're really talking about when we talk about fucking?

Are we really talking about...movies? food? death?

Cerberus

@tchrist Have you compared it with other verbs expressing the same act?

tchrist

@Cerberus Hardly.

Cerberus

Then this paucity is meaningless, for it is only relative paucity that concerns us.

Although such is probably very hard to attest.

tchrist

> Either way, it holds a great deal of value for scholars of language, given, as the OED puts it, “the absence of the word from most printed text before the mid twentieth century” and the “quotation difficulties” that causes.

So there!

Mitch

By the time technology has made it possible to research every spoken utterance (ubiquitous drones?), technology will have advanced to enforce all the rules and there won't be any change.

Cerberus

1:08 AM

2 mins ago, by Cerberus

Then this paucity is meaningless, for it is only relative paucity that concerns us.

@Mitch With lasers?

Robusto

@Cerberus Maybe right before, but it was decidedly more vulgar back in, say, the time of Rabelais.

Mitch

paucity is a funny word because it looks like 'paunch' which is a fat belly which is the opposite of paucity.

@Cerberus the recording of every utterance or the enforcement? OK, both.

tchrist

@Mitch poco a poco

Robusto

Well, it also looks a bit like Pauken, which we call tympani or kettle drums.

Mitch

we could excise...remove all latinate and hellenic words from English and remake them German style. fastshit = diarrhea, myocardial infarction = heart attack...wait that already works.

Robusto

1:12 AM

examine => look at

inspect => look at

Mitch

@Robusto I'd bet you'd say that bratsche looks like a slightly bigger violin

tchrist

@Mitch Where do you think attack is from?

Robusto

cranium => skull

Mitch

good!