Bawdy Language

Language describing woman has also traditionally joined dirtiness with sex. Words describing her as slovenly and untidy made her immoral as well, inferring that sloppy women were as derelict in their morals as they were in appearance. Man meanwhile got off clean.

A case in point is the evolution of the slut (14thC) or slattern (17thC). She started life innocently enough as a slovenly woman, speaking more to her messiness than her morals. But she soon developed a playful side. Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary: “Our little girl Susan is a most advanced slut and pleases us mightily.” It was then but a short jump to impudence and then to you know what. As Henry Fielding noted, “I never knew any of these forward sluts to come to good.” Indeed. A hundred years later Dickens told us exactly what she had become, “a slut, a hussy.”

A Class by Herself

Her reputation was further suspect as a woman of a certain class (19thC).5 Bunters (18th–19thC) picked up the rags from the streets, scrubbers (early 20thC) cleaned and washed, and doxies (16th–18thC, from the Dutch docke, a “doll or dolly, a mistress or prostitute”) accompanied those who begged for a living. The trollop (17th–19thC) was a coarse and vulgar street person. Everyone knew the tramp and her friends for what they were. Class distinctions always made it easy to identify them, though the hoity-toity wench (late 17th–early 19thC) didn’t know her place.

Not only was it traditional to treat lower-class women like dirt, but to further characterize them as lewd. Lewd once referred to anyone not belonging to the holy orders, hence unlearned and unteachable.

The language claimed many an innocent victim in this fashion.

No more Slut Bullying.

Use other words.

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The New York Times last week showed its usual squeamishness about language when it discussed allegations of sexual misconduct against a pop-philosopher of some note. The journalist writing the article noted how, “In recent years, he ( the philosopher) has pursued a more popular bent, writing books on movies, sports and Shakespeare, along with cheekier projects like a short 2008 volume subtitled A Critique of Mental Manipulation (the title is unpublishable here).”

Dr. Bawdy put his research staff on this immediately and found the title that the journalist said was “unpublishable here” to be “Mind-Fucking.” What is truly mind-fucking is how frightened the Times and its journalists are of certain words. This hearkens back to when the Times couldn’t find it in itself to fully print Jimmy Carter’s comment as to how he was going to whip Teddy Kennedy’s ass and when one of its own reporters, Adam Clymer, had been identified by Dubya as a “major league asshole”—reporting only that “He used an obscenity.”

What is obscene is the Times fucked up sense of priorities and prudishness. What is obscene is not a few colorful words which should be recorded for the sake of accurate reporting—but the Times reporting which fails to address the obscene use of power and justifies excursions such as the Iraq war through truly fucked up reporting such as that of Judith Miller which allowed her and the Times to become hand-maidens of the administration in justifying an illegal and immoral enterprise.

Directly from the desk of Dr. Bawdy – http://bawdylanguage.com/blog

Yes, sex cures everything….

Enjoy more Quotes from the library of Dr. Bawdy

New show coming soon on Showtime on how sex became a proper study of Science . How Virginia E. Johnson, a writer, researcher and sex therapist who with her longtime collaborator, William H. Masters, helped make the frank discussion of sex in postwar America possible if not downright acceptable, died on Wednesday in St. Louis at an assisted living center. She was 88

Masters and Johnson moved sex out of the bedroom and into the laboratory, where it could be observed, measured, recorded, quantified and compared.

Contrary to popular belief, there was absolutely no difference between a vaginal orgasm (the good kind, according to Freud) and a clitoral orgasm (the bad kind).

• The length of a man’s penis has no bearing on his ability to satisfy his partner.
• For elderly people, a group long considered sexually demure if not altogether chaste, vigorous sexual activity was not only possible but normal.

… Wow!

Directly from the desk of Dr. Bawdy – http://bawdylanguage.com/blog

In and  around the locker room there’s  little talk of breasts, but lots of conversation about tits.

A woman has bosoms, a bust, or a breast,

Those lily-white swellings that bulge ’neath her vest

They are towers of ivory, sheaves of new wheat,

In a moment of passion, ripe apples to eat.

You may speak of her nipples as small rings of fire

But by Rabelais’ beard, she’ll throw fifteen fits

If you speak of them roundly as good honest tits.

—“Ode to Those Four-Letter Words”

Read more – “Bawdy Language,” the Book

Enjoy new Bawdy Crossword every Monday.

The device is said to draw its name from the mysterious Dr. Condom or Conton, a physician at the court of Charles II (c. 1660–1685) who allegedly created the item to help put a cap on His Majesty’s growing number of illegitimate children. Students of that period, though, have been unable to locate the good Doc- tor, and they’re not even sure he really existed.

Other theories regarding the origin of the word range from a Colonel Condum in the Royal Guard to Condom, a town in Ger- many recorded as a fortress of considerable strength, to an oilskin case that held the colors of the regiment (18th–early 19thC). Some think the word may even be a unique blend of cunnus (for the female pudenda) and “dum” or “dumb”—together rendering the organ incapable of functioning.

Another  claim  regarding the  invention of the  condom, and  its first published description, was made  by Gabriello Fallopio (1523–1562)—whose name is most  closely  associated with  the Fallopian tubes—in De Morbo  Gallico, published two years  after his   death,  in  which   he   encouraged  use   of  linen   sheets  as condoms.

Letter Perfect

The  condom achieved its  greatest popularity during  the  seventeenth and  eighteenth centuries, often appearing in print  as c-d-m and  frequently spoken of as a letter  (French, Italian, or Spanish,  the  letter  and  envelope being  virtually  one),  a form of correspondence which absolutely, positively, had  to be there  overnight.

Read more – “Bawdy Language,” the Book

M’lady’s privates consist of a number of parts.  Those which are featured most prominently are the vulva1 (c. 1548,  Latin for “wrapper”), and  the  vagina2  (c.  1682,  Latin  for “sheath”). However, the whole world knows  them  better  collectively  as the cunt.

Cunt  is a  grand  old  word,  not  underground, not  slang.  You’ll find  variations of it in  Old  and  Middle  English,  Middle  Low and Low German, Old  Norse,  and  Dutch. For  years,  it was  believed that  cunt  derived  from cunnus, the Latin word for the female  genitals,  but  no one  could  explain how the  t got into  cunt.  It was  left for Eric Partridge to discover the word as related to the Old English cwithe,  “womb,”  finding  the  root  of the  matter in  cwe,  (or  cu), which  signifies  “quintessential  physical femininity”—a root  that appears in  a  host  of words  from  “cradle”  and  “cow”  to  “queen” and  “cunning.”

Cunt  has  been  taboo in  writing  and  in  speech since  the  fifteenth  century.  Between   1700   and   1959   it  was   considered obscene, and  it was a legal offense  to print  it in full.

No ordinary four-letter word,  cunt’s  always  been  rather special. It’s a “sexual  energizing  word,”  one  which,  according to Partridge, conveys “the sexual pleasure produced by a woman in a man  and indeed all  that  woman-as-sex signifies  to  a  man  both  physically and  spiritually.”

It’s a cavern of joy you are thinking of now A warm, tender field just awaiting  the plow.

It’s a quivering pigeon caressing your hand

Or that sweet little pussy  that makes  a man stand

Or perhaps it’s a flower, a grotto, a well, The hope of the world, or a velvety  hell.

But friend, heed this warning,  beware the affront

Of aping a Saxon:  don’t call it a cunt.

—“Ode to Those Four-Letter Words”

Read more – “Bawdy Language,” the Book

The  fart’s  fine  lineage  not  withstanding, other  reference works have  been  more  standoffish. The esteemed Oxford  English  Dictionary unequivocally declared fart “not  fit for proper  use.”  Nobody knows  why the  OED  chose  to close  down  this  innocuous form of personal expression or how the  decision was made. One  can  only imagine  a group  of eminent scholars gathered in their  ivory tower, deliberating upon  the  fate  of words,  having  a  beer  or  two,  and shooting the breeze.

“Personally, I favor letting off some  rectal steam.” “No, no! I much  prefer an anal  escape of wind.”

“Really gentlemen, it’s hard  to top voiding wind from the bowels.” “All in favor of the fart…”

And so the fart fell from grace—expelled from polite society  and relegated to second-class status. Farting  around (c. 1900)  came to signify purposelessness; anything overly  pretentious was  arty- farty.”  Farting  off  (c.1968) made  you  inattentive and  neglectful, leading  to one blunder after another, causing you to fart away (c.1928) or squander your opportunities.

The  Random  House  Dictionary  of the English  Language  defined a fart as  “an  irritating  or foolish  person.” One  in his  dotage  was written  off as an  old  fart. Worthless items  and  activities were not worth  a fart in a windstorm (both  20thC). And when  your  mind went  blank  and  you  did  something incredibly dumb, or  experienced an  inexplicable aberration in  your  software  program, you had  a brainfart (c. 1983).  “I normally remember my social  security number, but I had  a brainfart.”

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We’re  most  nuts  about our  balls (10thC), the  term  by  which  we know  them  best.  Balls  have  demonstrated  exceptional versatility and  service  to the  language. If you’re looking  for courage, look no further.  It takes  balls to acquit yourself  like a man,  often balls the size of  watermelons. Even  Hemingway’s heroes required real cojones (Spanish for balls) in order  to show  grace under pressure. Ever  so necessary, they’re  unfortunately not  always  sufficient. As Fast Eddie  Felson  (Paul  Newman) reminded Vince (Tom Cruise)  in The Color of Money  (1986):  “You’ve got to have  two things  to win. You’ve got to have  brains and  you’ve got to have  balls. You’ve got too much  of one and  not enough of the other.”

Newspapers seldom  have  balls in  such  matters. As part  of a policy adopted in 1993–94, The San Francisco Chronicle sup- presses even the hints  it formerly gave readers to “offensive”  words (e.g. sh-t  or a—hole), choosing now to either  omit them  altogether or use  in  their  stead “cute”  equivalents, such  as  “Spaldings” (a trade  name for sports  equipment) for balls.

The oldest  English  word for the testicles that  we have  on record is the  beallucas (before  10thC). We  later  had  the  ballokes (c. 1382)  or  ballocks and  the  verb  to  ballock (19th–20thC), from which  we got our  “Ballocky  Bill the  Sailor”—a  ballsy old  salt  if there  ever was one.  Time and  his yearning for acceptability would mellow him into the children’s favorite,  Barnacle Bill, with hardly  a hint of his salacious character.

Part 1 Part 2

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