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Remembered Today:

Swearing in the Great War


stuartd

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and then there is the incomparable CS Owen, of whom I wrote:

Captain Charles Samuel Owen. Charles Owen was born on 23rd January 1879, son of GH Owen of Ymlwch, Caernarfonshire and was educated at Cheltenham College and RMC Sandhurst from whence he was commissioned 11th February 1899, served with 2nd RWF in China (Relief of Tientsin and Relief of Pekin) and became a lieutenant 6th October 1900. The group photograph below shows him as a very young subaltern commanding the Mounted Infantry section of his battalion. He was promoted to captain 17th November 1906 and appears in the Malta group photograph as at Left. The illustration used at Right is dated 1910. He was Adjutant and Signalling Officer of the battalion on the outbreak of war, having been appointed 19th October 1913. His ms notebook and the early pages of the War Diary reveal him as a conscientious and neat administrator, meticulous in the logging of movements and the details of the burial of the dead. Richards admired him for his skill at filthy language and even compared with the ‘old sweats’ he was reckoned to have the greatest command of invective. Picton Davies (RRRWF) wrote of Owen ‘his wonderful flow of language – efficient, capable, kindly, yet covering it always with the most wonderful language ….’ Charles was Mentioned in Despatches in the London Gazette (LG) of 22nd June 1915 and was awarded the DSO LG 23rd June 1915. Promoted major on 1st September 1915, he was posted to command a battalion of the Royal West Kents at the front and was again Mentioned in Despatches on 1st January 1916. He became a Temporary Brigadier- General and served in that rank from 1916 to 1919 commanding 36 Infantry Brigade, having attained a brevet as lieutenant-colonel 1st January 1917. Charles married Violet Eva Fenwick in 1918. They had a son and daughter. After a brief spell in 1919 commanding a unit of the Welsh Regiment, he was promoted to substantive lieutenant-colonel to command 1st RWF 10th September 1921 to 10th September 1925. This period included active service in Waziristan on the North West Frontier of India. He was further promoted to Colonel 20th September 1925. His later career included the post of Officer in Charge of the Record and Pay Office Shrewsbury, and concluded with command of 159 (Welsh Border) Infantry Brigade (TA) from 1927 to 1931. Who’s Who gave his club as the Naval and Military. He contributed to The War the Infantry Knew. His honours included a CMG and no fewer than 6 MID (his regimental obituary says 8 MID) and the French Croix de Guerre to add to his DSO. He died aged 80 on 28th February 1959. His numbers are 93994 and P/20202, he served after the war and no National Archive file is available.

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I can recall my grandfather(ex sjt 2/4th Dorsets) cussing his dog with a mixture of An Indian tongue and Arabic and always ending with B****r.The dog never seemed to mind but I got told off for repeating it.

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The book The Bottom Of The Barrel by F A J Taylor relates a conversation between a Padre and a Serjeant.

The Padre told the Serjeant that the swearing by some of the young men in his section was appalling.

The Serjeant responded that they could add swear words to any word.

"Really" was the Padre's reply.

"Absof***inglutely said the Serjeant.

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I guess that soldiers in most wars pick up swearing, smoking and critters of various types. This may have been true of Roman soldiers! ( well, not the smoking...)

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Just seen in Soldiers by Richard Holmes. He mentions Crozier seeing a Welsh non-conformist preacher blasting away with a rifle.Apparently the said chap transfered to the Welch regiment."He did very well due to his spectaculer command of language!

Does anyone know how the chap could be!

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If you take a work such as 'The War the Infantry Knew 1914-19' which as the title suggests starts in 1914, I find it interesting to note that the use of expletives in some of the recounted conversations seems to build during the war (perhaps as one might expect). These expletives are censored out of the publication but what is being said is pretty obvious. I also get the impression that the use of what we might call 'foul' lanuage was not as common-place as it has been allowed to become today, where for many folk every other word has to be accompanied by such language. Back then, the impression from reading a book such as this is that the lanuage was certainly used, but seems to me to have been much more brought out by the day to day stresses encountered and was much more specific to the situation concerned.

Dave

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The book The Bottom Of The Barrel by F A J Taylor relates a conversation between a Padre and a Serjeant.

The Padre told the Serjeant that the swearing by some of the young men in his section was appalling.

The Serjeant responded that they could add swear words to any word.

"Really" was the Padre's reply.

"Absof***inglutely said the Serjeant.

In the hands of a Tommy the F word is amazingly versatile and can be adapted to almost any part of speech. I was on a live firing exercise with the regular army in Canada in the late 1980s just after the introduction of the SA80 rifle when it wasn't too reliable. The armoured personnel carrier we were in went over a large bump and people and kit got somewhat thrown around inside. After piling out to go straight into an attack and beginning fire and manoeuvre I heard this from the squaddie to my left: F***! My f***ing f***er's f***ing f***ed! His rifle had jammed following a knock taken in the bump a few minutes earlier and later needed some serious fixing from the battalion armourer sergeant.
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Words of 1916

f***-all, n. and adj. The so-called f-bomb may be the most versatile word in the language, appearing in countless forms and contexts. This particular variant, meaning “absolutely nothing,” appears in a British trial transcript from this year

From Here

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And who do we have to thank? That pillar of free-expression and laissez-faire the BBC.So now the filth, once "men-only" is emblazoned proudly on clothing as well as spewing out of the mouths of babes and sucklings. My grandfather and father would have been profoundly, dreadfully shocked.

Apart from anything else, as the consensus is that there are no naughtier words not in common use, where do we turn for a well-turned expletive? The magazine is empty.

Oh! Drat! may have a resurgence.

Actually I find that "Birdsweat!" or "Strike a Light!" have just as much impact as a flock of F***s, since they are quite unique and unexpected. Swearing in Russian gets the point across, too.
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This was written in a listening chamber in a fighting tunnel under Vimy. I have copied verbatim spelling mistakes and all, but censored the f word as seems necessary. A second tunneller has added the 'answer' verse

You don’t come hear to sleep and slum

But to listen for the Hun,

With the geophones you’l hear

The Dirty Eyed German f***ing near

A Old Soldier

Answer

Now don’t come here as Listeners poet

And you old soldier ought to know it

So use your wits

And hearken for Fritz

If you hear him then we’ll blow it

Dave Hedges

Durand Group

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Back even further in the mist of time the English were known for their expletives , during the Hundred Years War the French would call the English the Goddam's for there use of cursing , the pre war regular army away from the Wives and Women would have been a rich bed of language both in English and various words in Hindi and other dialects , perhaps with the coming of the Great War and the mixing of the educated middle classes the shock of this language would have had a knock on effect ?

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From Frederick Manning's ' The middle part of fortune '

“What do you make of it, sergeant?” he asked. “I don’ know what to make of it. What the bloody hell do you make of it, yourself? After all, that’s what matters. I suppose we’ll come through all right; we’ve done it before, so we can do it again. Anyway, it can’t be more of a bloody balls-up than some o’ the other shows ’ave been. "

Mike

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...a flock of F***s...

I like that. I think you have just invented a new and expressive collective noun!

The Anglo-Boer War website contains the text of several memoirs, one of which, by Ernest Bennett of a volunteer RAMC unit, gives an insight into swearing by soldiers shortly before the Great War:

"As a "Tommy" myself I had some unique opportunities of learning what they talked about and how they talked....Theological discussions were also by no means infrequent. One of my comrades insisted with a fervour almost amounting to ferocity upon the reality of "conversion," and was opposed by another whose tendencies were more Pelagian, and who went so far as to maintain that no one would employ the services of a "converted" man if he could secure one who was "unconverted". The amount of bad language evoked in the course of this theological argument was extraordinary. Such acrimonious discussions as these acted, however, as a mere foil to our general harmony, and a common practice on an evening when we had no wounded on our hands was to start a "sing-song". The general tone of these concerts was decidedly patriotic. "God save the Queen" and "Rule Britannia" were thrown in every now and then, but seldom, if ever, I am glad to say, that wearisome doggerel "The Absent-Minded Beggar". It is quite a mistake, by the way, to suppose that Mr. Kipling's poetry is widely appreciated by the rank and file of the army. From what I have noticed, the less intelligent soldiers know nothing at all about Mr. Kipling's verses, while the more intelligent of them heartily dislike the manner in which they are represented in his poems—as foul-mouthed, godless and utterly careless of their duties to wives and children. I remember a sergeant exclaiming: "Kipling's works, sir! why, we wouldn't have 'em in our depôt library at any price!" Of course it would be ridiculous to maintain that many soldiers do not use offensive language, but the habit is largely the outcome of their social surroundings in earlier life and is also very infectious; it requires quite an effort to refrain from swearing when other people about one are continually doing this, and when such behaviour is no longer viewed as a serious social offence."

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  • 1 month later...

This is quite the interesting topic. Being friends with quite a few guys that served in the USMC, I can only imagine what was heard coming from the mouths of the Marines at Belleau Wood. It would be quite colorful to say the least. Marines for some reason feel compelled to over use swearing. Well to a point I've even heard "Eff the effing effs!" yelled from a car window in traffic. I really don't envision it being any different then from now.

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This is quite the interesting topic. Being friends with quite a few guys that served in the USMC, I can only imagine what was heard coming from the mouths of the Marines at Belleau Wood. It would be quite colorful to say the least. Marines for some reason feel compelled to over use swearing. Well to a point I've even heard "Eff the effing effs!" yelled from a car window in traffic. I really don't envision it being any different then from now.

Indeed not. I don't have the page reference to hand as the book is at home, but in Richard Holmes' book Tommy he tells the story of a British officer shocked to hear (presumably for the first time) an American soldier refer to the Germans as c**k s*cking mother-f**kers.

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stuartd, I am not at all surprised that was said. I am an American, but I never served in the military and I still have become quite proficient in their use when needed.

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  • 2 weeks later...

thought swearing in the ranks was an offence or did that only apply to anyone with the rank of private,Good for George if the serjeant had said it outside the army it may have been worse bet George was placed on charges for it.

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They used to swear like ... well, troopers. The big taboo in Edwardian Britain was swearing in front of women and clergymen.

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Major General Cameron Shute had little time for Churchill's Naval Division (the 63rd), and a certain Sub-Lieutenant A. P. Herbert,

gave the following naval appreciation of that officer in unvarnished terms after one particularly harrowing inspection:

The General inspecting the trenches

Exclaimed with a horrified shout

'I refuse to command a division

Which leaves its excreta about.'

But nobody took any notice

No one was prepared to refute,

That the presence of sh*t was congenial

Compared to the presence of Shute.

And certain responsible critics

Made haste to reply to his words

Observing that his staff advisors

Consisted entirely of t*rds.

For sh*t may be shot at odd corners

And paper supplied there to suit,

But a sh*t would be shot without mourners

If somebody shot that sh*t Shute.

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  • 4 weeks later...

In the 21 years I lived with him I never heard my g/father swear but being RSM maybe he wasn't allowed. :hypocrite:

To hear a RSM swear I would suggest a trip to the Sergeants Mess at Royal Marines Poole would be very informative. For the language of the RAF after WW1 read The Mint by T E Lawrence.

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I can well remember the details of an offence typed on Charge Sheets (army Form 252) that often included what profanity a soldier had said followed by the disclaimer "or similer words".

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2/6th King's Liverpol Regiment :-

"On the night of the May 20th we made an attempt to get into the Centaur Trench, but the party was detected, and had to retire hastily under a shower of grenades. At 2am the next morning the enemy returned the compliment by trying to cut off a bombing post situated between Edmeads and Hobbs Farms. The operation commenced with a sudden shower of stick grenades, and a couple of men were seen trying to get through the wire into the derelict trenches in 'N' Gap. Bombs were thrown and rapid fire opened, and Rifleman "Gink" Bailey distinguished himself by standing on the parapet and slanging the Germans to the full extent of his Irish-American vocabulary. The Germans, disliking this, or at any rate not appreciating their general reception, withdrew"

Page 88 (Battalion History)

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