PARENTS	CHILDREN
White father and Negro mother	mulatto
White father and Indian mother	mestizo
Indian father and Negro mother	chino
White father and mulatta mother	quarteron
White father and mestiza mother	creole (only distinguished from the white by a pale-brownish complexion)
White father and Chinese mother	chino-blanco
White father and cuarterona mother	quintero
White father and quintera mother	white
Negro father and Indian mother	zambo
Negro father and mulatta mother	zambo-negro
Negro father and mestiza mother	mulatto-oscuro
Negro father and Chinese mother	zambo-chino
Negro father and zamba mother	zambo-negro (perfectly black)
Negro father and cuarterona or quintera mother	mulatto (rather dark)
Indian father and mulatta mother	chino-oscuro
Indian father and mestiza mother	mestizo-claro (frequently very beautiful)
Indian father and Chinese mother	chino-cholo
Indian father and zamba mother	zambo-claro
Indian father and china-chola mother	Indian (with rather short frizzy hair)
Indian father and cuarterona or quintera mother	mestizo (rather brown)
Mulatto father and zamba mother	zambo (a miserable race)
Mulatto father and mestiza mother	chino (of rather clear complexion)
Mulatto father and Chinese mother   I retain Tschudi’s comments, and also his use of the Spanish feminine forms.	chino (rather dark)

1 A Negro historian. He has published a number of valuable books on the history of his people, and accumulated an enormous store of illustrative material.

2 Walter D. Edmonds says in American Notes and Queries, May, 1941, p. 23, that “Zip Coon, the blackface song, was being sung in 1834,” but it apparently did not lead to the application of coon to Negroes.

3 I should add that this etymology was doubted by the late Dr. George Philip Krapp, who inclined to the theory that it came from barracoon, a word of Spanish origin designating slave quarters. See his letter in the American Mercury, June, 1926, p. 240.

1 Cf. AL4, p. 104.

2 New York, 1935, p. 91.

3 The colored composer of Under the Bamboo Tree; Oh, Didn’t He Ramble; Lazy Moon; Li’l Gal; Mandy, Won’t You Let Me be Your Beau?; Nobody’s Looking But the Owl and the Moon, and other great successes of the 90s, and also of the Negro anthem, Lift Every Voice and Sing. He was the partner for many years of Bob Cole, and the words of some of his songs were written by his brother, James Weldon Johnson, one of the best writers the race has yet produced.

4 In South Africa coon is sometimes used by the newspapers to designate a black native, apparently without derogatory intent. The following is from Stilt-Walker of Serowe, by Normal Howell, Cape Times (Capetown), Aug. 22, 1936 “Why is stilt-walking a common thing among the coons of the Cape?” In the Virgin Islands, formerly under the Danish flag, the blacks are called goons or goonies. In Lady Islands Come to Life, Baltimore Sunday Sun, March 22, 1942, Lawrence H. Baker suggested that the g may be “a gutturalizing of the c in coon, arising out of the Danes’ attempt to pronounce the latter word.” Coon’s age, traced by the DAE to 1845, and gone coon, traced to 1839, had no reference to Negroes.

5 Oct., p. 825.

1 New York; 1925, Vol. I, p. 256.

2 The once very popular song, Rastus on Parade, by Kerry Mills, was published in 1896. The DAE traces Sambo to 1806. Scheie de Vere says that it comes from the Spanish Zambo, “originally meaning bandy-legged,” first applied “to the offspring of a Negro and a mulatto, and afterward, in the South American colonies, to the child of a Negro and an Indian woman.” Bartlett says that in the middle of the last century it was used in the United States “more specifically to mean the offspring of a Negro and mulatto.”

3 The episode is recorded by Schuyler in the Pittsburgh Courier, Nov. 7, 1936. Woollyhead is traced by the DAE to 1827.

1 South-Western Slang, Overland Monthly, Aug., 1869. His article is reprinted in full in The Beginnings of American English, by M. M. Mathews; Chicago, 1931, pp. 151–63.

2 Nov. 28.

3 A Popular Dictionary of Australian Slang, by Sidney J. Baker; second ed. Melbourne, 1943, p. 58. See also Australian English, by Edward E. Morris; London, 1898, p. 350.

1 James Hargan, in The Psychology of Prison Language, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Oct.-Dec., 1935, p. 36, says that the inmates of Sing-Sing call a Negro a jig or buggy, and use gee-chee to designate one from Charleston, S. C. J. Louis Kuethe, in Prison Parlance, American Speech, Feb., 1934, pp. 25–28, says that the inmates of one of the Maryland prisons use head-light for a light-skinned Negro, spade for a very dark one, and three-quarters Kelt for a very light one. Raven I. McDavid, Jr., says in Miscellaneous Notes on Recent Articles, American Speech, April, 1943, p. 152, that brass ankle is used by the older Tennesseans for a mulatto. Dorothy Bentz says in American English as Spoken by the Barbadians, American Speech, Dec., 1938, p. 310, that in the Canal Zone all West Indians are called jigs.

2 Rice (1808–1860) was a comedian, playwright and songwriter, and Jim Crow was only one of his songs that became popular. He is not to be confused with Dan Rice (1822–1900), an acrobat, circus clown and temperance orator.

1 I am informed by Mr. Harry G. Green of Chicago that gelbe is not used in the Chicago region.

2 Private communication, July 20, 1937.

3 America’s Mother Country, by Rex Forrest, American Speech, Feb., 1941, p. 74.

4 New Yorker’s Album, by Constance Curtis, Amsterdam News, March 4.

5 Congressional Record, Dec. 17, 1943, p. A5942, col. 3.

6 International Libels, by William Power, Glasgow Record, April 10, 1929.

1 I take these from A Dictionary of International Slurs, by A. A. Ro-back; Cambridge, Mass., 1944, pp. 61–63. So far as I know, this is the only book in print listing what the compiler calls ethnophaulisms. It is not exhaustive, but it contains a great deal of amusing and instructive stuff.

2 But Roback, just cited, lists several words and phrases that reflect unfavorably upon what are thought to be American traits, e.g., the Hungarian verb amerikázni, to loaf on the job; the Italian noun americanata, an advertising stunt; and the French oeillade américaine, goo-goo eyes. Says Roback in his preface: “Undoubtedly some lay person will interpose the question: Why confine oneself to slurs and not include also the complimentary allusions? The answer is simple. There are practically none of the latter.”

3 The Origin of Gringo, editorial page, Sept. 29.

1 See also The Southwestern Word Box, by T. M. P., New Mexico Quarterly, Aug., 1932, pp. 263–68, and Nicknames for Americans Abroad, by R. G. W., American Notes and Queries, Dec., 1943, pp. 130–40. The latter quotes Katharine Ward Parmelee (Romanic Review, Vol. IX, pp. 108–10) to the effect that gringo is applied in Mexico and Honduras to Americans, in Chile and Peru to Englishmen, in Guatemala to Englishmen and Germans, and in Venezuela to anyone who speaks Spanish badly or not at all.

2 Among the New Words, by Dwight L. Bolinger, American Speech, Dec., 1943, p. 302.

3 An Essay on Man, I, 1732.

4 I am indebted here to Mrs. W. W. Elmer, Jr., of Idaho City, Idaho, and to Mr. Peter V. Chew of Berryville. Va.

1 An American Euphuism, by Ted Robinson, American Notes and Queries, Aug., 1943, p. 78.

2 Veiled Language, by Otto Jespersen, S. P. E. Tract No. XXXIII, 1929, p. 424.

3 Ajax was then pronounced a-jakes. Harington was Elizabeth’s godson, and is best remembered as the translator of Orlando Furioso. In 1605 he applied for appointment as Archbishop of Dublin, though he was not in holy orders. The Metamorphosis of Ajax included working drawings of his invention. It was republished in London in 1927. He followed it with An Anatomie of the Metamorphosed Ajax, and Ulysses Upon Ajax.

1 This work was reprinted in England, but H. W. Seaman tells me that it was a failure there. “Its only sales,” he says, “were among the extremely up-to-date.”

2 Aliases for the Latrine, American Notes and Queries, Oct., 1941, p. 103.

3 The Physiology of War, Journal of the American Medical Association (Tonics and Sedatives section), Jan. 29, 1944.

4 I am indebted here to Mr. S. H. Abrahamson of Montreal.

1 No New Jazz Age, This Week, Dec. 12, 1943; reprinted in full in the Congressional Record, Dec. 14, p. A5857.

1 I am indebted for this text to Mr. Alfred J. Croft, of the Hays office in New York. During the heyday of kidnappers and Prohibition gangsters special regulations were drawn up for the making of films dealing with crime, but they are now rather obsolete. In 1940, under pressure from the American Humane Association, pictures showing cruelty to animals were forbidden. The producers also subscribe to an Advertising Code prohibiting “profanity and vulgarity” in their advertising.

2 Quoted in the New Republic, Jan. 4, 1943.

3 Look, Aug. 2, 1938, p. 16. Censors’ Bans, News Review (London), Feb. 7, 1938. When Al Jolson’s Hallelujah, I’m a Bum was shown in England the title had to be changed to Hallelujah, I’m a Tramp, for bum, over there, designates the backside. Sissy is even worse to English ears, for it means a homosexual. Why shyster is objected to I do not know. Partridge says that the English borrowed it from America, in the sense of a disreputable lawyer, c. 1890. In 1938 the British Board of Film Censors forbade Walt Disney’s Snow White for showing to children on the ground that it might frighten them. At that time all the children in London were being taught how to wear gas-masks.

1 Under the heading of Verbotens of 1929, compiled by Joe Laurie, Jr., Variety, the theatrical weekly, once printed a list of the words and phrases forbidden to vaudevillains in that year. It included to bell with, cockeyed, wop, Arab (signifying a Jew), pushover, dammit, belly, fanny and lousy. It should be added that these prohibitions were imposed by the Keith booking-office, not by any official censorship. See also Lefty’s Notebook, by the aforesaid Laurie, Variety, June 14, 1944.

2 The result in one case was described by Wolcott Gibbs in a review of Storm Operation, by Maxwell Anderson, New Yorker, Jan. 22, 1944, p. 34, as follows: “The humor is hard to discuss in a magazine that is distributed by a moral Postoffice. For purposes of verisimilitude (to give him the benefit of a considerable doubt), Mr. Anderson has found it necessary to use a good many Anglo-Saxon monosyllables; for obvious reasons he has had to rearrange them a little, which he does by changing their initial letters. Obviously nothing is disguised by this clever trick and there is even a certain amount of emphasis gained by forcing the ear to adjust itself to a variation; it is almost as if the original had been underlined.”

3 You Can’t Sing That, March, 1935.

1 The NED traces backside to c. 1500 and shows that it was used by Addison. Bawdy-house is traced to 1552, and behind to 1786.

2 I am indebted here to Mr. William McNulty, of Bedford Village, N. Y.

3 Five Days Wonder, New Yorker, Nov. 6, 1943, pp. 70 ff.

4 Romance, by Mary Mielenz, American Speech, Oct., 1937, p. 237.

5 Euphemism, Monroe (Mich.) Evening News (editorial), Nov. 21, 1931.

1 Vancouver (B. C.) Daily Province, June 9, 1936.

2 Syphilis Sive Morbus Humanus, by Charles S. Butler, rear admiral, M.C., U.S.N., ret.; Washington, 1939, p. xii.

3 Shadow on the Land (editorial), Feb. 2, 1938.

4 Perhaps because what even medical men used to conceal under the euphemism of Neisserian infection is more frequently the subject of folk ribaldry. Albert L. S. Neisser (1855–1916) discovered the gonococcus in 1879.

1 The record of this episode is to be found in the Editor and Publisher — Catholic News Protests VD Ad Campaign, Sept. 2, 1944; CWV Continues Protest Against Anti-VD Ads, Sept. 16, and U. S. Agencies Prepare Guides on VD Ads, Sept. 23 — and in the Congressional Record, Sept. 18, 1944, p. A4413.

2 Gonorrhoea is the English spelling.

1 Hush-Hush Over V.D., News-Review, London, March 11, 1943, p. 19

1 The history of the war upon nudity in America remains to be written. It had its forgotten heroes, and they deserve to be resurrected. One of them, apparently, was Dr. Josiah Gilbert Holland (1819–81), editor of Scribner’s Monthly and author of “God Give Us Men!”, a favorite school declamation of the Gilded Age. At a time when the art museums of the country were still hesitating to take the drawers off their statuary he printed in Scribner’s (Nov., 1879, p. 24), a shameless woodcut of Raphael’s “Apollo and Marsyas,” showing anatomical details that must have shocked many a reader.

2 A Diary in America; New York, 1839, p. 153.

1 Domestic Manners of the Americans, by Frances M. Trollope; London, 1832.

2 Mr. Collier’s Corrected Folio of 1632, by Richard Grant White, Putnam’s Monthly, Oct., 1853, p. 401, footnote. Two years later, in March, 1855, Putnam’s turned ass, the name of the animal, into a—.

3 The NED’s first example is from James Flint’s Letters from America; Edinburgh, 1822, p. 264. Its first example in English use is dated 1882. The DAE traces rooster in American use to 1772, but it does not seem to have become general until the 30s. At the start it was regarded as somewhat advanced, and an anonymous writer in Bentley’s Miscellany, 1838, p. 581, records that a New York landlady preferred barndoor he-biddy.

4 In the sense of the front of a shirt, bosom is traced by the DAE to 1852. Shirts themselves became linen.

5 Traced by the DAE to 1837 and marked an Americanism.

6 Inexpressibles, Unmentionables, Unwhisperables and Other Verbal Delicacies of Mid-Nineteenth Century Americans, by Mamie Meredith, American Speech, April, 1930, pp. 285–87.

7 Charles Sealsfield’s Americanisms, II, by John T. Krumpelmann, American Speech, April, 1941, p. 109, and Lexical Evidence from Charles Seals-field, by James B. McMillan, American Speech, April, 1943, p. 122.

1 Bartlett, 1859, listed hose as a Western term. “Stockings,” he said, “is considered extremely indelicate, although long socks is pardonable.”

2 I take this from Bartlett, 1859.

3 New York, 1937, p. 316.

1 Sulphur Springs of New York, Harper’s Magazine, June, 1856, p. 4.

2 Mary A. Dodge (Gail Hamilton): Country Living and Country Thinking; Boston, 1864, pp. 94–96.

3 The DAE traces like a thousand of brick to 1842, to dry up to 1854, and to knuckle to to 1864.

4 The DAE traces truck, in the sense here indicated, to 1822 and marks it an Americanism. Its first example of dicker is from the book here quoted. It does not list traps in the sense of luggage.

5 Apparently knocked up had not yet acquired its American sense of pregnant — or maybe La Dodge was too refined to be aware of it. On p. 4 of the same book she thus described herself: “Representing the gender half of humanity, of respectable birth, tolerable parts, and good education, as tender-hearted as most women, not unfamiliar with the best society, mingling, to some extent, with those who understand and practise the minor moralities, you would at once infer from my circumstances that I was a very fair specimen of the better class of Americans, — and so I am. For one that stands higher than I in the moral, social, and intellectual scale, you will undoubtedly find ten that stand lower.”

1 Mary Abigail Dodge (c. 1830–96) is not to be confused with the Mary E. Mapes Dodge (1838–1905) who for many years edited St. Nicholas. Mary Abigail was born at Hamilton, Mass., and got her pen-name from the last syllable of her middle name and the name of her native town. She wrote many books and was editor of Our Young Folks for a short time in the 60s.

2 American Journalism; New York, 1041, p. 232.

3 Verbal Modesty in the Ozarks, Dialect Notes. Vol. VI, Part I, 1928, pp. 57–64.

1 See AL4, p. 301. A Study of Verbal Taboos, by J. M. Steadman, Jr., American Speech, April, 1935, p. 95, shows that nerts itself is considered “coarse, obscene” by not a few college students.

2 An Obscenity Symbol, American Speech, Dec., pp. 264–78.

3 Lexical Evidence From Folk Epigraphy in Western North America; Paris, 1935.

4 In A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English; New York, 1938. See also his revised and enlarged edition of Grose’s Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue; London, 1931.

5 There is a useful bibliography of the earlier literature of the subject in Read’s An Obscenity Symbol, just cited.

6 Strange Fruit, Saturday Review of Literature, April 1, p. 14.

7 Probably a slip of the pen for pre-Puritan.

8 The original spelling was hore. This is traced by the NED to c. 1100. Hure was an early variant. The NED’s first example of whore is from the Coverdale Bible of 1535. The word occurs 16 times in the King James Version. Whoredom occurs 26 times, whore-monger 5 times, and whorish 3 times. Dr. Leonard Bloomfield suggests in Language; New York, 1933, p. 401, that whore “must have been at one time a polite substitute for some word now lost.”

9 Edwin M. (Ted) Robinson printed an intelligent discussion of the subject in his Philosopher of Folly’s Column, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Aug. 19, 1944. He called attention to the anomalous fact that the current taboo applies only to the words themselves, not to the ideas behind them. “All the matters referred to by these awful words,” he said, “may be discussed in print by the use of Synonyms.”

1 The former is listed by Baker. A derivative, boolshevik, signifying an active trader in boolsh, was coined by C. R. Bradish of Melbourne.

2 Webster 1934 derives bushwa(h) from bodewash, a Western American mispronunciation of the French bois de vache, cow’s wood, i.e., the bits of dried buffalo dung used as fuel on the prairies in the early days. In Bushwah, San Francisco News Letter and Wasp, July 14, 1939, Peter Tamony argues that it is rather derived from bourgeois. But it is commonly used as a euphemism for bullshit, and I incline to think that it represents a deliberate mispronunciation of that term.

3 The last three are used in a poem called Oxiline, by a Tulsa, Okla., poet who conceals himself behind the initials R. M. H. His work was published at Tulsa in 1939.

4 Bull — Bunk, by P. G. Perrin, American Speech, April, 1940, p. 216. See also Bull, by Joseph E. Gillet, American Speech, April, 1939, pp. 97–98, and Bull, American Speech, Dec., 1939, pp. 303–04.

5 Verbal Taboo in a College Community, American Speech, April, 1938, pp. 96–107.

1 In my boyhood in Baltimore a loose paving brick was called a she-brick. On wet days it discharged a stream of dirty water on anyone who stepped on it.

2 In the Middle West, in the days when harlots were itinerants, the conveyances they used were called cat-wagons.

3 Call-house especially indicates a house whose inmates go out to parties on call. See Among the New Words, by Dwight L. Bolinger, American Speech, Oct., 1942, p. 204.

4 One of the earliest of these, indicating a woman infected with venereal disease, is fire-ship. The NED traces it in English use to 1672, but it is to be found in the archives of Maryland (Vol. LVII, pp. xxxv-vi; Baltimore, 1940) three years earlier. I am indebted here to Dr. J. Hall Pleasants of Baltimore, editor of the archives.

5 Among the New Words, by Dwight L. Bolinger, American Speech, April, 1941, p. 145.

6 Advertisement of Bonwit Teller in the New York Times, Oct. 2, 1935: “What can I wear that will make me flat enough for the new suits? This question is most frequently asked by women who have large derrières.”

7 When, in 1943, the WPB allotted some synthetic rubber to the makers of brassières it designated them breast forms and breast shields. I take this from an article in the New York Post by Earl Wilson, reprinted in Tonics and Sedatives, Journal of the American Medical Association, Jan. 1, 1944, p. 30. Brassière is usually reduced to bra.

1 A list of euphemistic brand-names invented by American manufacturers of such things is in Glamour Words, by Charles E. Bess, American Speech, April, 1941, pp. 96–99, among them, undikins, roll-ons, campus briefs and cup-forms.

2 Much Ado (editorial), Dec. 14, 1942.

3 One of Twins Delivered Here Was Never in Mother’s Womb, Aug. 25, 1944. This was one of the words expunged from the Bible by Noah Webster in his expurgated version of 1833. It occurs in the King James Version 40 times.

4 The Latin Quarter in Language, Dutch Treat Club banquet book, 1937. I have not seen this book, but have had access to the manuscript of the essay through the courtesy of Mr. Hughes.

5 The Interior Hierarchy, Smart Set, Jan., pp. 413–15. It was reprinted in A Book of Burlesques; New York, 1916, pp. 190–98.

1 On Bugs, by Steven T. Byington, American Speech, Feb., 1938, p. 41.

2 I am told by H. W. Seaman that squanderbug was used in official advertisements during 1944 as a symbol for waste. Also, that a song called The Love-Bug Will Bite You was popular c. 1938.

3 Mark Twain (to an Englishman) in Concerning the American Language, in The Stolen White Elephant, 1882: “When you are exhausted you say you are knocked up. We don’t.”

4 The DAE shows that, in 1833, to stay with, in American usage, had the meaning of to marry.

5 Mr. Alistair Cooke tells me that as a verb it is banned from refined discourse in England as in America.

6 In the sense of to keep up one’s courage or resolution the NED traces this verb-phrase to 1853. It was used bv Dickens in 1857. In W. S. Gilbert’s Trial by Jury, 1875, is: “Be firm, my moral pecker!”

7 Its use among American dog breeders is discussed in Dog Pups and Horse Colts, by Louise M. Ackerman, American Speech, Dec., 1942, p. 238, and Dog Terminology, by Elrick B. Davis, American Speech, Oct., 1943, pp. 235–36.

8 June 19, 1938, p. 15.

1 Children of a Harsh Age (a review of The English Child in the Eighteenth Century, by Rosamond Bayne-Powell; London, 1939), June 24, 1939, p. 303.

2 Hell in American Speech, Aug., 1931, pp. 433–35.

3 The choice between the and in is determined by euphony and the taste of the speaker. Sometimes, as Merryweather notes, both are used, as in how in the hell? Occasionally, hell is reinforced with another intensifier, as in what the goddam hell?

4 Sometimes used in a negative sense, as in George Ade’s hell of a Baptist.

5 Merryweather notes that hell of a time may indicate either the intensely agreeable or the intensely disagreeable.

1 This, says Merryweather, is the “most common” use of hell, “and the most soul-felt. With proper variations of voice it may be made to express resignation, weariness, boredom, exasperation, consternation, rage, and probably other emotions.” Certainly surprise, disappointment, alarm, and even mere disagreement might be added.

2 Transferred to airmen, c. 1935.

3 See also Hellion, by Willa Roberts, American Speech, Feb., 1932, p. 240, and Hell in American Speech, by J. R. Schultz, the same, Feb., 1933, p. 81.

4 It’s Hard Enough, Anyway (editorial page), March 10, 1944.

5 Especially, I should add, in American English.

1 Profanity and Social Sanction, American Speech, April, 1938, p. 153.

2 The NED Supplement calls heck a “euphemistic alteration of hell,” but for this there is no evidence, though in such forms as what the heck, heck of a time and by heck it is undoubtedly used in place of hell. Dr. L. G. Van Loon of Reading, Pa., suggests that it may be a Dutch loan. The rural Dutch, he says, often put bai je gek?, meaning are you crazy? at the end of a sentence, and heck may represent an American attempt to pronounce gek. The use of the phrase, he says, in no way reflects upon the sanity of the listener, but is intended to be merely intensive, like do you understand?

1 I have had access to it by the grace of Dr. Julian P. Boyd, the librarian.

2 Mainly, Exclamations in American English, by E. C. Hills, Dialect Notes, Vol. V, Part VII, 1924, pp. 253–84.

3 The DAE agrees that Sam Hill is a euphemism for hell, marks it an Americanism, and traces it to 1839, but in What the Sam Hill?, American Speech, Feb., 1940, pp. 106–09, A. E. Sokol argued that it really represents devil, and that it was probably suggested by Samiel, the devil in Carl Maria von Weber’s opera, Der Freischütz, first performed in New York in 1825.

4 Hully gee (for holy Jesus) was introduced by Edward W. Townsend’s Chimmie Fadden and Major Max; New York, 1895, but it disappeared with the decay of the Bowery boy as an American comic type.

5 Sometimes jiminetty or jiminetties. See College Words and Phrases, by B. S. Monroe and C. S. Northrup, Dialect Notes, Vol. II, Part III, 1901, p. 142.

6 Traced by the DAE to 1857 and marked an Americanism. There are many spellings, e.g., gewhilikins, gheewhillikins and geewhilikins. Bartlett also lists jewillikens. He calls it “a Western exclamation of surprise,” and does not indicate any relationship to Jew.

1 Judas priest is listed by Wayland D. Hand, in his Dictionary of Words and Idioms Associated with Judas Iscariot, University of California Publications in Modern Philology, Jan. 30, 1942, p. 342, but he does not mention Judas Christopher. He also lists jumping Judas and great jumping Judas, both of them, I take it, euphemisms for holy jumping Jesus.

2 Cuss, in the sense of a worthless fellow, often used good-naturedly, is traced to 1775, don’t care a cuss to 1850, not worth a cuss to 1826, to cuss to 1815, to cuss out to 1881, cussed to 1840, cussedest to 1845, cussedness to 1857 and cussing to 1841. In all these situations, of course, cuss is a euphemism for curse, which is itself a euphemism for damn, very old in English.

3 Since the appearance of the DAE’s second volume in 1940 James B. McMillan has found gosh in an English translation of the German works (all dealing with the United States) of Charles Sealsfield, 1842 (Lexical Evidence From Charles Sealsfield, American Speech, April, 1943, p. 124). The DAE’s first example, 1857, is in the form of gosh-all-Potomac, now obsolete. Gosh also appears in gosh-all-hemlock (1865), goshdang (1871), and gosh-durned (1884), not to mention gosh-awful, from godawful (1883).

1 Boston, 1789, p. 385.

2 New York, 1924; Vol. I, pp. 118–26.

3 The Etymology of an English Intensive, Language, June, 1927, pp. 96–99. See also Darn, by Dr. Pound, Saturday Review of Literature, Sept 7, 1940, p. 19.

1 Darn Again, Dec., 1942, pp. 276 and 277.

2 Darn Upsets Court, New York Times, July 15, 1941.

1 Dr. Josiah Combs suggests the possibility that dagone was borrowed from the name of Dagon, the god of the Philistines and a formidable early rival to Jahveh. When Delilah delivered Samson to the Philistines they took him to their town, Gaza, and there made thankful sacrifices to Dagon. How Samson, given supernatural strength by Jahveh, pulled down the temple of Dagon upon their heads is told in Judges XVI, 26–31. Later on Jahveh took on Dagon for a battle to a finish, with the result described in I Samuel V, 2–5.

2 Vol. III, Part I, Map 599; Providence, R. I., 1943.

1 Neither Thornton nor the DAE lists goddam. Time caused a painful sensation in Nov., 1944, by reporting that President Roosevelt, finding the voting-machine at Hyde Park, N. Y., out of order when he went to vote on Nov. 7, called out “The goddamned thing won’t work.” On Nov. 16 the Glendale Ministerial Association of Glendale, Calif., demanded that he apologize for this “shocking profanity.” On Nov. 21 he told the reporters at a White House press conference that what he had really said was “The damn thing won’t work.” This explanation apparently placated both clergy and laity, for nothing more was heard of the matter.

2 The Great Horn Spoon, American Speech, Aug., 1929, pp. 499–500.

1 The Great Horn Spoon, by D. L. Chambers, Aug., 1928, p. 459; The Great Horn Spoon, by N. R. L., Feb., 1929, pp. 255–56.

2 There is a brief bibliography in The Literature of Slang, by W. J. Burke; New York, 1939, pp. 152 and 153. To it may be added Children of Linguistic Fashion, by Robert Withington, American Speech, Dec., 1934, pp. 255–59; The Psychology of Profanity, by G. T. W. Patrick, Psychological Review, 1901, pp. 113–27; Profanity, by Henry Woodward Hulbert, Biblical World (Chicago), 1920, pp. 69–75; The Art of Swearing, by H. L. Mencken, Baltimore Evening Sun, May 24, 1937; Eighteenth Century Conversation, by William Matthews, Manchester Guardian Weekly, Jan. 14, 1938, p. 36; Hard Swearing on a Church Steeple, by A Quiet Man, Putnam’s Monthly, Jan., 1855, pp. 41–50; and A Cursory History of Swearing, by Julian Sharman; London, 1884. The article on Profanity in Hastings’ Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics; New York, 1928, Vol. X, pp. 378 ff., is worth consulting. There is a brief section headed Exclamations, Expletives, Oaths, Etc., in A History of Modern Colloquial English, by Henry Cecil Wyld; London, 1920, pp. 386 ff. In The World of Sholom Aleichem, by Maurice Samuel; New York, 1943, Chapter XXIII is mainly devoted to Yiddish billingsgate, and in English As We Speak It In Ireland, by P. W. Joyce; second ed.; Dublin, 1910, Chapter VI is on Swearing.

1 Lately cited, pp. 389 and 390.

2 British Recognition of American Speech in the Eighteenth Century, Dialect Notes, Vol. VI, Part VI, July, 1933, p. 328.

1 London, 1927; revised ed.; 1936.

2 P. W. Joyce, before cited, makes a similar report with respect to Ireland. “The general run of our people,” he says in English As We Speak It In Ireland; second ed.; Dublin, 1910, p. 66, “do not swear much; and those that do commonly limit themselves to the name of the devil either straight out or in some of its disguised forms, or to some harmless imitation of a curse.”

3 He never used a big, big d—.

4 Let’s Stick to Our Own Bad Language, London Sunday Chronicle, Jan. 26, 1930.

1 Mayfair Gives Up Swearing, London Sunday Dispatch, April 19, 1936. I am indebted for this to the late F. H. Tyson, of Hong Kong.

2 Modern Maledictions, Execrations and Cuss-Words, North American Review, Nov., 1934, pp. 467–71.

1 An Anthology of Printable Profanity, by Oren Arnold, Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine, Jan. 13, 1935, p. 4.

2 The lecture was on Dec. 1, 1939. I should add that the Boston Evening Globe, in an editorial on it on Dec. 4, spelled out the word.

3 The elegant swelluva was reported in American Speech, Dec., 1939, p. 318.

4 I am reminded of this by a learned Dominican,

1 I am indebted for the history of the society in the United States to Mr. Vincent dePaul Fitzpatrick, managing editor of the Baltimore Catholic Review. For its principles and practices see In His Name: Official Holy Name Manual; New York, 1941.

2 Partridge traces it in English use to 1712, but Mr. Eric Sandquist of Boston has pointed out “son and heir of a mongrel bitch” in Shakespeare’s King Lear, Act II, scene 2 (1605–6). There is evidence in the journal of Captain Thomas Morris, of the British Army, that the American Indians, if not the American whites, had picked it up by 1764. He says: “There was an alarm in the night, a drunken Indian having been seen at the skirt of the wood. One of the Delaware nation, who happened to be with Pontiac’s army, passing by the cabin where I lay, called out in broken English: ‘D—d son of a b—ch!’ ” Morris, who served with the Seventeenth Regiment of Infantry, published his journal in Miscellanies in Prose and Verse; London, 1791. It was republished in the first volume of Early Western Travels, 1748–1846, edited by the late R. G. Thwaites; 33 vols.; Cleveland, 1904–07. For this I am indebted to Roy Harvey Pearce of the Johns Hopkins University.

1 Lebende Bilder aus Amerika; Stuttgart, 1858, p. 292.

2 So is hijo de puta in the Spanish-speaking countries.

3 I am indebted here to Mr. Edgar Gahan, of Westmount, Quebec.

4 The cognate s.o.a.b. is embalmed in the name of Soab creek on a map issued by the. Canadian Geological Survey.

1 Oct. 7, 1939. The worldly New Yorker used it in the collision form of sonofabitch on Feb. 26, 1944, p. 20.

2 It was likewise deleted when Pygmalion became a film, but the Lord Chamberlain had nothing to do with that. Films are policed by the Film Censor, who is even more watchful. But nothing comparable to our Postoffice censorship of books and magazines exists in England, so there was no official action when John Masefield used bloody in The Everlasting Mercy in 1911, and the fact was not brought up against him when he was made Poet Laureate in 1930.

3 What Stage May Say, London Daily Telegraph, Jan. 15, 1936. I am indebted here to the late F. H. Tyson, of Hong Kong.

4 — But Unbowed, London Morning Post, Sept. 25, 1936.

1 For example, in Beatty’s Immortal Phrase, London Daily Telegraph, March 12, 1936.

2 For example, Do You Know?, by Edward Shanks, London Sunday Times, Jan. 1, 1939.

3 Standing By, May 21, 1941.

4 Changing Language, Gorton Reporter (Ashton-under-Lyne), Oct. 30, 1942. The canon was the Rev. T. W. Taylor and the Rotary Club was that of Rochdale. The speech was quite iconoclastic in doctrine. The canon came out strongly against Thomas Bowdler (1754–1825), who published an expurgated Family Shakespeare in 1818 and so gave the language the verb to bowdlerize. “He doubted,” said the Reporter’s report of the speech, “whether a severe expurgation was on the right lines, and questioned whether today we were lowering our standards.”

5 British Decorum’s Heavy Hand, by Paul W. Ward, London dispatch in the Baltimore Sun, Dec. 24, 1939.

1 Retracts Slang, Editor and Publisher, May 14, 1938.

2 A third popular theory occasionally bobs up, but it is heard much less often than the two I have mentioned. It is to the effect that bloody refers to the blood shed at the Crucifixion, and is thus related to the archaic God’s blood, which later became ’sblood. See The Origin of Bloody, by P. A. Waldron, John o’ London’s Weekly, Oct. 29, 1937.

3 London, 1931, p. 42.

4 New York, 1926, p. 17.

1 Several correspondents suggest that Weekley erred here. Blutarm, in German, is most often used to designate anemic, and when it is used in the sense he gives it is usually spelled as two words, blut arm. But blutarm as one word is given in Cassell’s New German and English Dictionary, edited by Professor Karl Breul of Cambridge; London, 1909, as also meaning “poor as a church-mouse.”

2 Of this Robert Withington says in A Note on Bloody, American Speech, Oct., 1930, p. 33: “It is, however, to be remarked that both the French and the German ‘equivalents’ of bloody are distinctly literary words.” Weekley’s examples of sanglant are from Molière and Voltaire. When Shaws Pygmalion was translated into German and presented at the austere Lessing Theatre in Berlin an equivalent for the bloody in Eliza Doolittle’s speech, “Not bloody likely,” was found in the banal exclamation quatsch, meaning twaddle. In German, London Morning Post, Sept. 9, 1935.

3 Private communication, Dec. 4, 1942. Duranty later recorded this surmise in his book, Search For a Key; New York, 1943, p. 18.

4 Mr. Arthur D. Jacobs, of Manchester.

1 Here I am again indebted to Mr. Jacobs, who says that blooming bears “exactly the same relation to bloody as dash does to damn.”

2 The record here is taken from a Series of letters in the London Sunday Times, May 24, May 31, June 7 and June 14, 1936. I am indebted for clippings of them to the late F. H. Tyson, of Hong Kong.

3 A contributor signing himself R. G. H. reports in the Sydney (N. S. W.) Morning Herald (A Word of Fear, Feb. 11, 1939) that this phrase originated at the University of Melbourne in 1898. The university, at that time, conferred the degree of doctor of letters on Edward E. Morris, author of Austral English: A Dictionary of Australian Words, Phrases and Usages; London, 1898, and the students staged a burlesque of the ceremony. Morris had omitted bloody from his book. The students, apparently resenting this prudery, presented a solemnly-gowned candidate who carried under his arm a huge tome inscribed The Great Australian Adjective. Other Australian discussions of bloody are in Australian or Shavian?, by George Mackaness, Sydney Morning Herald, March 1, 1941, and After Business Hours, by Wallace Nelson, Australian Manufacturer (Sydney), Jan. 28, 1939.

1 Robert Graves says in his Lars Porsena, or, The Future of Swearing; New York, 1927, p. 34, that this song originated during World War I and is called simply The Australian Poem. New stanzas are added from time to time.

2 I am indebted here to Messrs. P. E. Cleator, Norman Anning, David H. Dodge and G. S. Leach. An interesting note on such forms is in Sandwich Words, by Harold Wentworth, Philological Studies, Sept., 1939, pp. 65–67. Wentworth lists some curious forms, e.g., abso-one-hundred-percent-lutely, abso-goddam-lutely, West-by-God-Virginia, and Sinclair Lewis’s “I’ll by thunder make you artistic.” The late Irving Babbitt of Harvard (1865–1933), the foe of the Romantic movement, is said to have been fond of son-of-a-Romantic-bitch. Joseph Pulitzer’s invention of inde-god-dam-pendent and obli-goddam-nation is noted in AL4, p. 315.

3 A long essay on bloody is in Words, Words, Words!, by Eric Partridge; London, 1934. See also Words Ancient and Modern, by Ernest Weekley; New York, 1926, pp. 16–19.