Jump to content
Free downloads from TNA ×
The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Swearing in the Great War


stuartd

Recommended Posts

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)

See post #44 also.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 7 years later...

What a marvelous old thread.

 

I was looking for one on swearing after watching a popular youtuber, who makes videos on linguistics, he mentioned swearing in the war. According to his research more emphasis was accorded on an instruction when not swearing, as this made others realise it was out of the ordinary and more important.

 

Seeing as it's been a good few years, has anyone more examples from letters, diaries and the like that they can share?

 

Derek.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

interesting thread. 

I had an interesting discussion with Boyfriend after getting out of the cinema after "1917". I thought that the British were a bit too much swearing like americans ... especially when it came to the F word... but apparently, I was mistaken and the use of that particular word was quite common... 

I've been looking for it in diaries ever since. 

I'll note that the memoirs of ladies who served use a language that is much more "châtié"... 

 

M.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In Lyn Macdonald's book They Called it Passchendaele she says that many local people in Flanders were puzzled to hear British soldiers frequently using the phrase "fake Belgium." Having ascertained the meaning of "fake" they were still puzzled as to what the Tommies were getting at. Except that they were not, of course, saying "fake"...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I read one Padre's memoirs in which he said he had a letter from the father of one of his soldier's concerned that he might hear all sort of bad language!

Apropos of which the Padre said he replied saying that he had never heard any soldier using bad language!

I'm nor sure which of them was the  more naive.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, sassenach said:

In Lyn Macdonald's book They Called it Passchendaele she says that many local people in Flanders were puzzled to hear British soldiers frequently using the phrase "fake Belgium." Having ascertained the meaning of "fake" they were still puzzled as to what the Tommies were getting at. Except that they were not, of course, saying "fake"...

 

Ah, like Mr President's "fake news"!  :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To get a truly contemporary idea of the troops vernacular style of speech and swearing at that time you will not get better evidence than the unexpurgated, original publication, of Private Frederic Manning’s at the time controversial book, “Her Privates We” (aka “The Middle Parts of Fortune”), first written in 1929.  The realistic language was too much for the sensibilities of the bourgeoisie and so that print run was very limited at not much over 500-copies.  An expurgated version with sanitised language was then published in 1930.  I imagine it might be possible to find an archived copy of the original, which would be relevant to the subject of this thread, online.  
 

Afternote:  This is it, complete with ‘bad language’:  https://adc.library.usyd.edu.au/view?docId=ozlit/xml-main-texts/manmidd.xml;chunk.id=d1111e175;toc.depth=1;toc.id=d1111e175;database=;collection=;brand=default

Edited by FROGSMILE
Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 hours ago, healdav said:

he had never heard any soldier using bad language!

Perhaps he didn't think it 'bad'.

(In the circumsiances).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have enjoyed reading this old thread. To draw in another reference to swearing in the literature of the GW, George Coppard (of course) has something to say about it, an excellent paragraph in Chapter 13 of With a Machine Gun to Cambrai. I won't quote the whole paragraph, but it begins "In keeping with this almost sub-human way of life went the foul language that we used in almost every sentence. I'm sure that half the time we didn't know we were swearing. It just came naturally, as if it was the proper way to talk. I often think that this bad habit was an unconscious protective shield to keep us from becoming crazy ..."

He then gives us a hierarchy of insults; the RSM, who they actually quite liked, was a 'bastard', just because he represented authority (presumably not to his face), the Germans were 'bloody ********', and, "the supreme odium was to refer to someone as a 'windy bastard', which was, of course, just being bloody nasty ...".

He continues, rather more coyly (he was, after all, writing in the 1960s) "The adjective derived from the four letter word held pride of of place in our limited vocabulary. 'Pass me that ______ pozzy' (jam) was considered proper English".

My grandad, an officer writing his personal diary shortly after the war, sometimes quotes snippets of conversation, in which swear words are mostly represented simply by dots, especially when reporting conversations overheard among the men, but sometimes he will put the first, or even the first and last, letter of the offending word, for example, 'b......", or, writing of an occasion when, proceeding in pitch black through a wood, he unexpectedly comes across someone he knows, and the other officer responds to his voice by saying "Well, I'm d....d, is that Hall?". He never writes "f......", but perhaps that is the word represented by dots alone?

Once, when he he was sharing a not very weather proof dugout with a fellow-officer, he tells of how, on a pouring wet night, he had rigged up some groundsheets to catch the drips. His fellow officer "very tired, had just settled down on the bed, when I was passing the dug out and heard loud – and not altogether Parliamentary – language issuing therefrom, so went to investigate. The weight of water had got too heavy for the ground sheets and had broken the supports, with the result that the whole flood came down ... and he [the fellow-officer] was again soaked through, including his blankets." The diary doesn't record exactly what the "not altogether Parliamentary" language was, so our imaginations have free reign, but I can't imagine that the fellow-officer was especially appreciative of my grandad's Heath Robinson attempts to construct a shelter for them both ...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Monotonous and repetitive swearing becomes boring. I once read a RN anecdote recording "a f...... leading f...... torpedo f...... man"

 

In my civilian branch of MOD there was very little swearing, even in the days when there were very few women, and virtually none at all when they arrived in substantial numbers. They even inhibited the belching and breaking of wind.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, Muerrisch said:

Monotonous and repetitive swearing becomes boring. I once read a RN anecdote recording "a f...... leading f...... torpedo f...... man"

 

In my civilian branch of MOD there was very little swearing, even in the days when there were very few women, and virtually none at all when they arrived in substantial numbers. They even inhibited the belching and breaking of wind.

 

    My dear old dad, a Devonport lad from a navy family,  always used to use the term about swearing-that the language was "warm". Despite the capacities of Jolly Jack to get up to all sorts of mischief, swearing never seemed to be that much prevalent- Dad always used the phrase to describe  extended or profound swearing that it "enough to make a Chief Petty Officer RN blush" 

    Either British censorship and attention to detail were profound in the extreme or is there no example of the F word word left as graffiti anywhere along the Western Front?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Somehow,  and I am damned if I can remember the book, I recall comments that although swearing in the ranks was common, those in the ranks of the battalion concerned thought less of officers - who were supposed to be gentlemen - who swore and employed profanities. An interesting thought.

regards

David

Link to comment
Share on other sites

46 minutes ago, David Filsell said:

Somehow,  and I am damned if I can remember the book, I recall comments that although swearing in the ranks was common, those in the ranks of the battalion concerned thought less of officers - who were supposed to be gentlemen - who swore and employed profanities. An interesting thought.

regards

David

 

     Very much so David-  That the ORs had strong opinions of what they expected from an officer.  It struck me when watching the recent TV airing of "Journey's End" -the excellent performance of Stephen Graham as 2LT Trotter-obviously the  commissioned-up ranker- At ease with his men but only a passing brush with what was expected in the way of social behaviour from,say,. a pre-war British officer.  Such things were obviously considered important-eg Just how much shorted would the courses at OCU have been if it didn't include things like table manners?  ("A gentleman is one who uses the butter knife even when he dines alone").

    It does remind one of the old American jibe about an "officer and a gentleman"-  "An officer,yes, but a gentleman only by Act of Congress"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

     Very much so David-  That the ORs had strong opinions of what they expected from an officer.  It struck me when watching the recent TV airing of "Journey's End" -the excellent performance of Stephen Graham as 2LT Trotter-obviously the  commissioned-up ranker- At ease with his men but only a passing brush with what was expected in the way of social behaviour from,say,. a pre-war British officer.  Such things were obviously considered important-eg Just how much shorted would the courses at OCU have been if it didn't include things like table manners?  ("A gentleman is one who uses the butter knife even when he dines alone").

    It does remind one of the old American jibe about an "officer and a gentleman"-  "An officer,yes, but a gentleman only by Act of Congress"

But please see my much earlier post on Captain CS Owen, Adjt 2nd RWF. It seems clear that Frank Richards was impressed, and perhaps even admired Owen's flow of filthy language. Dunn also refers to the matter I believe. Perhaps if an officer cursed, it needed to be inventive, original, pertinent and not repetitive?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Missed that one.  I am beginning to think that  2RWF had a little of the Wellington Factor in it-"I cannot vouch for what effect they have on the enemy Sir-but,by God,they scare me" 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is it true that the REME enjoyed citing their motto :

 

The impossible we do straight away, but f-----g miracles take two minutes longer    ?

 

Edit : REME implies Second World War.. Dad used that saying.

 

Phil

Edited by phil andrade
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...
On 14/01/2021 at 16:40, A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy said:

To draw in another reference to swearing in the literature of the GW, George Coppard (of course) has something to say about it, an excellent paragraph in Chapter 13 of With a Machine Gun to Cambrai.

 

I have just begun reading There’s a Devil in the Drum by John Lucy, and have come across what he says about swearing at the end of Chapter 3, soon after he and his brother had enlisted, and found themselves with a group of soldiers from Dublin and Belfast:

"Our Dublin friends blasphemed softly and easily, and the slum adjective for fornication preceded every noun they uttered. The staccato talk of the northerners was interspersed with obscure and obscene words, which we soon discovered was simply the mode, and entirely meaningless. We, too, acquired the habit of colouring our speech a trifle, just for the sake of being understood."

He is making a very similar point to that made by George Coppard in the extracts I quoted in my post of 14 January (referenced above), but the style is very different. Generally (so far) I prefer Coppard’s, but that is obviously just personal preference, and may also have something to do with the fact that Lucy was writing in the 1940s, while Coppard was writing in the 1960s. I do like Lucy's last sentence in the passage just quoted, however.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...