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Terms Which Have Disappeared

LizzieMaine

Bartender
Messages
33,732
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
Meanwhile, we've often discussed whether certain types of Bad Language were appropriate to various historical period. Well, here's sort of an Ur Document along such lines. This letter was hand-delivered to each team in baseball's National League before the 1898 season, spelling out exactly what sort of language was prohibited on the field. This is not a modern-day mockup, fake, or hoax. It's the real deal, fully authenticated by the Chief Historian of the Baseball Hall of Fame, and please be warned -- the language used will lift your stovelids. And it'll put to rest any speculation about Victorian language, at least in sporting circles in the United States.
 

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
Meanwhile, we've often discussed whether certain types of Bad Language were appropriate to various historical period. Well, here's sort of an Ur Document along such lines. This letter was hand-delivered to each team in baseball's National League before the 1898 season, spelling out exactly what sort of language was prohibited on the field. This is not a modern-day mockup, fake, or hoax. It's the real deal, fully authenticated by the Chief Historian of the Baseball Hall of Fame, and please be warned -- the language used will lift your stovelids. And it'll put to rest any speculation about Victorian language, at least in sporting circles in the United States.

Lizzie, this "Bad language" reminds me of my military days.
Sometimes I felt that some of these "kids" spoke in
this manner because they were away from "home" and could
get away with such language. I'm sure this comes as no surprise.

But reading of this time period.
I cannot imagine those specific words being used back then.
I'm sure their was profanity but I had a different concept.
Very informative and interesting.
Thanks for sharing.

Btw: I've never tasted porridge & prunes.
But I did chew on sweet bean pods from wild Mesquite trees.
Was always on the 'go'! :p
 
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Stearmen

I'll Lock Up
Messages
7,202
Lizzie, this "Bad language" reminds me of my military days.
Sometimes I felt that some of these "kids" spoke in
this manner because they were away from "home" and could
get away with such language. I'm sure this comes as no surprise.

But reading of this time period.
I cannot imagine those specific words being used back then.
I'm sure their was profanity but I had a different concept.
Very informative and interesting.
Thanks for sharing.

Btw: I've never tasted porridge & prunes.
But I did chew on sweet bean pods from wild Mesquite trees.
Was always on the 'go'! :p
It may have been there were no lady's present. I can remember my Grandfather at tractor pulls and other mostly men events back then. His buddy's and him, would use words that would make a sailor blush, but back home with the lady folks, you would think he was the Pope! My mother said, she never heard him use a four letter word.
 

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
It may have been there were no lady's present. I can remember my Grandfather at tractor pulls and other mostly men events back then. His buddy's and him, would use words that would make a sailor blush, but back home with the lady folks, you would think he was the Pope! My mother said, she never heard him use a four letter word.

That no "lady's" were present could be one factor. But we were mostly 19 and away from home.
Drill sergeant being the only adult...and what terms he used to describe how he felt about us is still
floating in space somewhere. If you've read "This Letter" and the choice words, you get the picture.
No...we talked dirty because it gave us a release and no one was around except those fellas on the other
side of the jungle trying their best to shut us up permanently! :D
 
Messages
12,952
Location
Germany
Lizzie, this "Bad language" reminds me of my military days.

Btw: I've never tasted porridge & prunes.

Buddy, start tomorrow with good old oatmeal on water (please, without any sweets!), it's one of the most healthy breakfasts and if necessary, you will be saturated for six to seven hours, underways. You could overleap lunch, if you want.
Boiling up for Porridge isn't need, except, you are in hospital at the gastrology. ;)

But, don't tell the other about, otherwise we could get a problem, if more people would like to nourish themselves really healthy. "Haferflocken" are available in every german supermarkets, but, if the masses would come on the idea, the supply bottleneck would surely come very fast. :D

Haferflocken are fantastic staple food, with 70% roughage.

Beeing underways, you can use the trick of eating doubled portion for breakfast (nearly full Müsli-bowl), circa 200 Gramm. If I do this at 7:00, I can be saturated until 18:00, no joke. But never forget to drink enough and better not use the trick too often. ;)
 

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
Thank you, that is good advice.
I have this in the pantry.
jfeycx.jpg



I don't follow a scheduled time for eating or having a heavy plate.
I eat in small amounts when hungry all the time.
Not as much meat as in the past. Mostly fish and poultry
along with greens.. I enjoy fixing a pot of vegetables
of all sorts.
 
Last edited:
Messages
12,952
Location
Germany
Thank you, that is good advice.
I have this in the pantry.
jfeycx.jpg



I don't follow a scheduled time for eating or have a heavy plate.
I eat in small amounts when hungry all the time.
Not as much meat as in the past. Mostly fish and poultry
along with greens.. I enjoy fixing a pot of vegetables
of all sorts.

Interesting! I never heared of steel cut oates. But, this obviously unrolled oates wouldn't work for me, if they couldn't soak the water in. ;) Pro on Haferflocken.
 

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
Water is used to prepare steel-cut oats.

Basically steel-cut oats are oat groats that have been "cut" into two or three pieces
for a relatively unprocessed product.
Rolled or old fashion oats are made by steaming and rolling oat groats for faster cooking.
I prefer steel-cut (Irish) oats.
 
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BlueTrain

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,073
Both my wife and I eat oatmeal once in a while. My wife prefers the regular kind, me, the quick kind (one minute). I add sugar (because I'm American), margarine or butter, and milk. I should add raisins, too, sometime. My wife eats hers plain. Once a week or so I will eat müsli, too, which is available at the local German gourmet store. But I have to remember to get it started the night before. I rate it as merely "okay," but nothing special taste-wise. My apologies to Switzerland.

My stovelids are lifted, language-wise. Those instructions were eye-opening. It reminds me of something from an old book about a man who served in the French Foreign Legion (Today there is also a Spanish Foreign Legion) before WWI, I think it was. The man was German and had been in the German Army and later lived in the United States. His command of French was apparantly passable (probably Alsatian). But he nevertheless devoted a few pages discussing the most widely used all-purpose word in the French vocabulary, as used by soldiers. But he did not actually translate the word.

My father was a P.O.W. in Germany for about a year in WWII and was loaned out to work on a farm (same thing was done in the U.S. with German P.O.W.s. He managed to learn some German but he said they would laugh and correct his words when something not pronounced correctly came out as a "dirty word," as he put it.
 

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
^^^^^^

I also grew up with "American" habit of using sugar.
But early on developed a taste for
using fruits as sweetners on
oats or cereals.
It enhances the flavors whereas
sugar is overpowering.
But, everyone has it's own unique
taste buds.
 
Messages
10,933
Location
My mother's basement
Meanwhile, we've often discussed whether certain types of Bad Language were appropriate to various historical period. Well, here's sort of an Ur Document along such lines. This letter was hand-delivered to each team in baseball's National League before the 1898 season, spelling out exactly what sort of language was prohibited on the field. This is not a modern-day mockup, fake, or hoax. It's the real deal, fully authenticated by the Chief Historian of the Baseball Hall of Fame, and please be warned -- the language used will lift your stovelids. And it'll put to rest any speculation about Victorian language, at least in sporting circles in the United States.

I love this line ...

"Whether it be the language quoted above, or some other indecent and infamous invention of depravity ... "

Some of the more colorful phrases ever to vibrate my eardrums were uttered by fellow members of a Boy Scout drum and bugle corps I joined at age 11. It was no secret to the dads that we boys and our "healthy" pastime weren't quite so wholesome as the moms might have believed. There was a jingle we recited on the bus -- it may as well have been our anthem -- which is so lurid that to this day I repeat it only to those I know well enough to know they won't be shocked by it.
 

Big Joe M

New in Town
Messages
23
Location
Pennsylvania
My pet peeve is words that have entered our vocabulary. I wonder if people from the Vintage age would understand the term chipotle or ciabatta bread or Dasani?
 
Messages
10,933
Location
My mother's basement
Meanwhile, we've often discussed whether certain types of Bad Language were appropriate to various historical period. Well, here's sort of an Ur Document along such lines. This letter was hand-delivered to each team in baseball's National League before the 1898 season, spelling out exactly what sort of language was prohibited on the field. This is not a modern-day mockup, fake, or hoax. It's the real deal, fully authenticated by the Chief Historian of the Baseball Hall of Fame, and please be warned -- the language used will lift your stovelids. And it'll put to rest any speculation about Victorian language, at least in sporting circles in the United States.

And ...

Some of the epithets cited in that letter (the references to our canine companions aside) I know to be literally true of some of my favorite people.
 

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