Re: USAGE: Circumfixes
| From: | Roger Mills <rfmilly@...> |
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| Date: | Tuesday, May 11, 2004, 3:29 |
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Doug Dee wrote: (re "un-f*ing-base")
> In a message dated 5/10/2004 8:34:52 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> mark@POLYMATHIX.COM writes:
>
> >The discontinuous version might be a recent innovation, I reckon, or it
> >might have a limited distribution among sociolectal varieties. Or maybe I
> >just don't get out enough.
>
> The _Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang_ has a citation
> from 1921, referring to this usage during World War One.
>
I need to listen more carefully next time, and one _assumes_ the writers of
HBO's "Deadwood" are aiming at historical accuracy, but I believe
"un-F*ing-...." is being used (a lot!!) in that show, which supposedly takes
place in the late 1870s.
The problem with "historical accuracy" w.r.t. vulgar usage in the 1870s is
that no respectable publication could have contained the f** word.