Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010 00:00:53 -0500
From: Ted White <twhite8 at cox.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Fw: new google literature tool
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

On 12/18/2010 9:59 PM, Mike B. wrote:

>  On 12/18/2010 6:22 PM, Ted White wrote:
>
> > On 12/18/2010 3:50 PM, Mike B. wrote:
> >
> >> On 12/18/2010 3:39 AM, ronkean at juno.com wrote:
> >>
> >>> In 500 Billion Words, a New Window on Culture
> >>>
> >>> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/17/books/17words.html
> >>>
> >>> By PATRICIA COHEN
> >>
> >> Wow! And just to prove that people never change, the first
> >> search I put in was for "fuck". Interesting result too.
> >> Especially if you extend the time back to 1500.
> >>
> >> Second search was on George Carlin's "Seven Words". Very quick
> >> response. I wonder if I wasn't the first to ask, so it's in the
> >> cache? ;-)
> >>
> >> In general, it looks like there was a long period of language
> >> repression from about 1725 until 1950. I wonder what that
> >> correlates with? Newspapers and publishing houses? Ending with
> >> TV and the Baby Boomers?
> >
> > Are you serious? Are you unaware of the censorship which
> > prevailed in this country until the LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER Supreme
> > Court decision? The post office did not allow words like "fuck" to
> > be used in anything which went through the mails. Customs seized
> > books (like Henry Miller's) published (in English) in France. Etc.
>
>  Yes, I'm serious. The data goes back to 1500, and ends in 2008. It
>  covers English (American and British can be separated), French,
>  German, Russian, and Spanish too. Your explanation is probably a
>  large part of the answer for American English, but I'm not sure how
>  it would fully explain British English for instance....which had a
>  similar pattern.

Check out the history of censorship in Britain.  See "Mary Whitehall."
It's if anything worse than ours.

--Ted White