8 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2024
    1. By the time that section of the letter C was published for the OxfordEnglish Dictionary the only cunt that was listed by Murray was cunt-, a cross-reference to the prefixes cont-, count- with no mention whatsoever of thefemale body part. Fuck was also left out. Although these old words had beenin use since the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries respectively, they wouldhave to wait until the 1970s to be included in the OED. Murray did, however,include pudendum, a word derived from Latin for ‘that of which one ought tobe ashamed’, which he defined as ‘the privy parts, the external genital organs’with no reference to a woman or – God forbid – her vulva.

      1970s!

      the shame attached to pudendum has lasted culturally for a terrifically long time in the West.

    2. a fellowlexicographer and one of the Dictionary People, John Stephen Farmer, hadhis own legal drama. Farmer was writing a slang dictionary with WilliamHenley, and was struggling to publish the second volume (containing theletters C and F) of his work on grounds of obscenity. Farmer took hispublisher to court for breach of contract in 1891, and tried to convince a jurythat writing about obscene words in a dictionary did not make him personallyguilty of obscenity, but he lost the case and was ordered to pay costs.Eventually, he found fresh printers and avoided the Obscene Publications Actby arguing that his dictionary was published privately for subscribers only, notthe public, and the remarkable Slang and Its Analogues by Farmer and Henleywas published in seven volumes (from 1890 to 1904), with cunt and fuck andmany other words regarded as lewd on its pages. Farmer’s legal case and thepublic outcry that ensued was a clear deterrent for Murray.
  2. Jul 2021
    1. 1920's slang

      • dough, bread: money,
      • vamp: (of women)
      • Sheik: a attractive man (from Valentino film)
      • and how!: indeed!
      • putting on the Ritz: dressing up, 1929 Putting on the Ritz with reference to Ritz Hotel
      • Ragamuffin: a bedraggled or messy person
      • tomato: a pretty woman "ready for the picking"
      • wet blanket: a killjoy (used to put out a fire)
      • whopee: having a really good time (sex)
      • fried, smoked, bent, zozzled, ossified: drunk
      • bump off: to kill someone (from gangster culture)
      • cheaters: glasses
      • hot: stolen
      • hock: pawn something for quick cash
      • petting party: get together of men and women where kissing or petting occurred
      • bob: short haircut style
      • heebie jeebies: shaking or trembling as a result of psychological
      • it: sex appeal, from eponymous film title starring Clara Bow
  3. Apr 2021
  4. Feb 2017
    1. The other conclusion, adopted by the "ordinary language" philosophers, is that use determines mcuning. Wittgenstein in his later work takes this' position, and speech-act theorist J. L. Austin is one of its most important defender!>
    1. He understands the principles of linguistic change-for example, the tendency for slang terms to be-come part of the reputable vocabulary-and he addresses a practical problem that teachers of rhetoric have yet to solve, namely, the conflict between descriptive lin-guistics and the need to leach usage.
  5. May 2016
  6. annotatingausten.sfsuenglishdh.net annotatingausten.sfsuenglishdh.net
    1. arch

      Usually referring to, "women and children, and esp. of their facial expression: Slily saucy, pleasantly mischievous" (OED).