SWEARING AND CUSSING - 19TH CENTURY STYLE

re: DARCY AND FITZWILLIAM...

I am getting some flack from people who don't believe there was any swearing in the Regency period. I have pasted the following reference which includes both 'balls' and 'fuck'. Those words are not 'modern' words as some have suggested, they have been around forever, not in public discourse but among soldiers or men who are alone together and in a highly agitated state.

Believe me the book was proofread five times and I was called out on the terms 'hormonal' which would have greater explained Lizzy's temper in the beginning of the book, and 'bear hug', 'pit bull', 'caveman', etc. The list was endless and aggravating. They even checked the Soldiers Song I used to introduce Fitzwilliam's Volume II. Sourcebooks is a very tightly run organization - they would have noticed the F-bomb if it was out of period.

The more sensitve ladies are offended and I apologize; however, my book was written from two men's viewpoints, so I went with male type of aggressive language. It was not done to titillate or shock.


Swear Words, Taboo Words, Euphemisms
"The Writers Guide to Everyday Life in the 1800s" by Mark McCutcheon, Writers Digest Books, Cincinnati, Ohio. 1993.

Although seldom found in print, swear words or taboo words were undoubtedly uttered just as profusely in the streets as they are now. In polite or mixed company, of course, euphemisms were used, especially by women and children. Many connotations of words used today remain curiously unchanged from the nineteenth century to the twentieth. In cases where no definition appears, the reader can use his or her imagina- tion and extrapolate from current usage. Also note that some words that seem harmless today were considered highly vulgar not so long ago.

adventuress: euphemism for a prostitute or wild woman.

ass, ass-backwards (also bass-ackwards), asswipe: used throughout the century.

balls: shortened from ballocks, used throughout the century.

bastard: used throughout the century.

bitch: in the sense of a slutty, promiscuous Person (as a dog in heat) and actually applied to either sex early in the century. Its useto denote a crabby person, especially as applied to a female, came much later.

blazes: euphemism for hell or the devil.

bloody, British swear word, from mid-1700s on.

boat-licker: the equivalent of an ass-kisser.

breast' not used in mixed company. "Delicate" citizens went so far as to call a chicken breast a bosom.

bull: a taboo word due to its association with sexual potency. Polite folk spoke of a cow brute, a gentleman cow, a top cow, or a seed ox.

bull: in reference to lies or exaggerations, widely popularized by Civil War soldiers, from 1860s on.

cherry: vulgar term for a young woman, from at least mid-century on.

clap: for venereal disease, from the 1700s on.

cockchafer, cocksucker, cockteaser: all from at least mid-century on.

condom: taboo because contraceptives were illegal for most of the century.

crap: euphemism for ***** from at least mid-century.

****: highly vulgar, used throughout the century.

cussed: a somewhat acceptable swear word, meaning cursed, contemptible, mean, etc.

damn: a more powerful swear word in the nineteenth century than now. devil: a more powerful expletive in the nineteenth century than now.

dickens: a euphemism for devil, e.g., What the dickens are you going on about now? Popularly used from the second half of the century.

drafted: a mild expletive, sometimes used as an euphemism for damned, throughout most of the century.

fart: used throughout the century, e.g., I don't give a fart. Not worth a fart in a whirlwind.

french pox: euphemism for syphilis.

fuck: used throughout the century.

The Three Musketeers - 3-D

The wonderful Matthew
Macfadyen as Athos