H. L. Mencken

“ The word cadet, having a foreign smack and an innocent native meaning, is preferred to the more accurate procurer; even prostitutes shrink from the forthright pimp, and employ a characteristic American abbreviation, P. I.—a curious brother to S. O. B. and 2 o’clock. Nevertheless, a movement toward honesty is getting on its legs. The vice crusaders, if they have accomplished nothing else, have at least forced many of the newspapers to use the honest terms, syphilis, prostitute and venereal disease, albeit somewhat gingerly. ”

“ Alas, even medical men yet show some of the old prudery. I am informed by Dr. Morris Fishbein, of the Journal of the American Medical Association, that not a few of them, in communications to their colleagues, still state the fact that a patient has syphilis by saying that he has a specific stomach or a specific ulcer, and that the Journal lately received a paper discussing the question, “Can a positive woman have a negative baby?”—i.e., can a woman with a positive Wassermann, indicating syphilis, have a baby free from the disease? ”

“ Apparently, even virgin is still regarded as too frank in Philadelphia. [12] Fifty years ago the word decent was indecent in the South: no respectable woman was supposed to have any notion of the difference between decent and indecent. To this day many essentially harmless words and phrases are avoided in conversation because they have acquired obscene significances. The adjective knocked up, so common in England, means pregnant in America, and is thus not used politely. American women use unwell in a certain indelicate significance, and hence avoid its use generally. ”

“ Son-of-a-bitch, and its euphemistic American daughter, son-of-a-gun, are very seldom heard in England. “True oaths,” says this correspondent, “are rather rare among the English. There are a number of ugly words, probably descendants of true religious oaths, and a few that are merely dirty, and beyond that practically nothing. Sound rather than significance, it appears, gives a word evil qualities. Men have been put in jail for using meaningless words. There is, however, the same tendency to euphemism as in America. ”

“ On April 29, 1919, for example, the New York Tribune printed an article quoting with approbation a declaration by Major W. A. Wilson, of the Division of Venereal Control in the Merchant Marine, that “the only way to carry on the campaign (i.e., against venereal disease) is to look the evil squarely in the face and fight it openly,” and yet the word venereal was carefully avoided throughout the article, save in the place where Major Wilson’s office was mentioned. ”

“ All-fired for hell-fired, gee-whiz for Jesus, tarnal for eternal, tarnation for damnation, cuss for curse, holy gee for holy Jesus, cussword for curse-word, goldarned for God-damned, by gosh for by God, great Scott for great God, and what’ell for what the hell are all Americanisms ”