Swearing during WWII

[Bravo]

so im pretty sure classic films heavily sanitized how soldiers talked back then.

does any1 know how much swearing went on?

or did ppl really say: "fudge i just got shot"?

any other "trendy" catchphrases or whatnot?

thank you

[pdr]

to the Genres: Historical board and you'll get answers galore!

First a question.
Which soldiers? British? Oz? NZ? US? They all had distinctive ways of swearing and cursing.

[Bravo]

american.

some guys are from the south as well.

and you might be right, i prob shouldve posted this in the historical board section.

let's see how thing play out for now i guess.

[Maryn]

For what it's worth, my husband's dad was in WWII, and in the 25 years I knew him, I never once heard him (or his wife) swear. Not even a damn or hell. It wasn't all that unusual for a man to speak that 'clean' in those days, and to silently disapprove of men who swore, even mildly, in everyday conversation.

He wasn't wounded in service, but I truly can't imagine him swearing if he were. That language pattern just wasn't in him.

Maryn, who must have seemed like a longshoreman to her in-laws

[Bravo]

okay, this is what i needed to hear.

i might have to tone things way down now.

but the question is what did they say instead? any ideas?

[rtilryarms]

I watched Leave It To Beaver and the best list I can muster is:

jeepers
golly
knucklehead
gee
gosh
swell
nifty
keen

In moments extreme angst, they augmented with combo cussing:

golly gee
nifty keen
gee, swell

hope this helps

rt

[Medievalist]

Sailors have always sworn.

I suspect that there was a stronger, much much stronger, taboo about swearing in front of ladies/women, children, officers and clergy.

Did't SOL and FUBAR both appear during WW II?

[rtilryarms]

But seriously,

I think the message I got from watching Patton and Saving Private Ryan is that pretty much the cuss words are exactly the same as today, except for new bundle of words describing genitals and promiscuous women.

The only thing really changed is the slang prior to and after. Same for all generations I think.

[Higgins]

Sailors have always sworn.

I suspect that there was a stronger, much much stronger, taboo about swearing in front of ladies/women, children, officers and clergy.

Did't SOL and FUBAR both appear during WW II?

My guess is that there was a lot of Deadwood-level swearing.

SNAFU enshrines some of it.

[batgirl]

My dad was born in 1904. He swore. He blasphemed, to be more exact - took the name of the Lord in vain, swore by Jesus Christ, Hell and damnation, damned people to hell.
He used 'son of a b*tch', sometime abbreviated to 'ess oh bee', 'b*stard', and 'bloody' (sometimes 'bloody-*ss'), and 'Christly' - these were often strung together in various combinations. He even used 'son of a sea-cook' (he'd been a cabin-boy in his early years, so I believe this may have had some particular relevance), an epithet I've otherwise only seen in books.
What he did NOT use were the sexual swear words that I learned in the schoolyard and from reading graffiti. He told me that those were 'baby words' for children who didn't know the real words for the body parts and activities. I haven't watched Deadwood, but I've heard they mostly swear with what my dad called baby words.
I'm pretty sure he would never have used any variant of mo-fo, because in the milieu where he grew up, I think if someone said that to you, you pretty much had to kill them, or at least beat them into insensibility. That's the impression I have.
-Barbara

[Gary]

Constant streams of obscenities in conversations are relatively new. Yes, soldiers have sworn since time began, but they reflected the culture. When I enlisted in 1959, there were people who cursed a lot, but not a lot of people who cursed. I knew many who didn't curse at all. My commanding officer held a very dim view of anyone who couldn't communicate without vulgarities, and he was an enlisted man during WWII.

If you are writing a story about the military from that era and want accuracy, keep the cursing to a bare minimum and be advised that "mother" did not preceed any foul word. The words you were likely to hear took the Lord's name in vain, or referred to defecation, not sexual acts.

[Fern]

My dad was also a WWII vet. The worst word I ever heard him say was "crap". I feel sure it was a little different when the guys were alone with other guys, but in the presence of women and children, swearing was not allowed with many people during that time. If a man forgot and swore in front of women or kids, he immediately apologized or may very well be asked to curb his tongue by any other man present, which would prompt an apology.

Women that swore were pretty much thought of as "loose".

If the "F" word was used, I think batgirl was right; someone would have to throw down on you.

Words I remember my Dad using were: Gee, Drat,
"The Devil" (as in "The Devil You Say", but he usually just said "Oh, The Devil!)

Confound was another word they used a lot during that era. I found it funny that in the dictionary, Damn is listed under definitions of confound.

Seems like I remember hearing "son of a gun" from others of Dad's age group quite a bit.

[Cyjon]

Didn't "Private Ryan" catch flak from vets about the language? I seem to remember them saying that soldiers didn't typically swear like that back in the 40s. Patton was a notable exception, and that was one of the things that made him such a maverick.

[Marlys]

Funny, I was just reading an essay about the word "f_ck" as used by WWII soldiers. An American POW in Stalag IV B put together a lexicon of the word and all its many and varied uses in various English-speaking parts of the world. It would have been published in the prisoners' newspaper, but the camp was liberated before it could be. Since the note As civilians, we'll have to get used to saying "No thanks!" in place of "Fxxx you!" is included, the implication is that swearing was indeed pretty common.

The essay is called"The Ineffable F--r-Letter Word," by Benedict B. Kimmelman, and it's in the book Verbatim, edited by Erin McKean.

[kikazaru]

While there is only a small bit of info on WW2, this is an interesting essay on swearing in historical context.

http://www-csli.stanford.edu/~nunberg/deadwood.html

[Dario D.]

Not having been around back then, I can say that I *assume* there were far more "clean" people back then. I'm sure there were plenty of people who swore frequently, but I know that swearing probably couldn't have been as big a thing as it is today. Now, you have TV, movies, music, etc, all pumping swear-words into your vocabulary on a daily basis, whereas the airwaves were strictly clean back then, and you could only pick up the dirt from those you spent time with, and depending on whether swearing was popular in your particular part of the country.

Just speculation though... I wasn't actually there.

[threedogpeople]

What about fubar? (F***ed up beyond all recognition). I'm 99% sure that it is a WW2 word. Like dame, dish, Betty, etc.

[Marlys]

What about fubar? (F***ed up beyond all recognition). I'm 99% sure that it is a WW2 word. Like dame, dish, Betty, etc.
Yeah, the OED gives the first date in print for "fubar" as January 8,1944.

The prison camp lexicon also lists "snafu," "janfu" (joint Army-Navy f*ck up), GFU (general f*ck up), NFG (no f*cking good), and "Fujiyama" (f*ck you, Jack, I'm all right).

[johnnysannie]

The use of profanity is a variant, even today. There are some groups who - for various reasons - do not use profanity, often for religious reasons. Although I was not around during World War II either, my relatives who served during that war were profane even in civilian life. My two sets of grandparents were a generation apart so I had one grandfather who served in the Pacific Theater of the War and two uncles who served as well. My other grandfather was a World War I Navy vet whose language was every bit as colorful as any sailor stereotype.

My personal experience is to say that yes, soldiers were quite profane.

That is not to say, though, that ALL soldiers were profane; I'm sure some were not.

In "Everyday Life From Prohibition To World War II", this is what it says about the F-word:
"one of the most widely used swear words of the war although never seen in print or heard in the war movies of the day. (A bizarre form of censorship; books might readily describe someone's head being blown off but a witness to this horror could only say, "Oh, F---", as if readers might faint if they saw the word spelled out."
Then a quote from "Invasion Diary", Richard Tregaskis, 1943 is used as an example: "The sergaent translated the order into his own lingo, "You f....... eight balls, get the f... off this G..-damn hill before I wrap this rifle barrell around your neck."

If I were in doubt and wanted to know, I would talk with World War II vets or visit a VA hospital. My experience doing so some years ago revealed a high rate of profanity but of course someone else's experience might be rather different.

And as a brief end note - "Leave It To Beaver" is hardly a standard of what real life was like in the 1950's -

[Gary]

And as a brief end note - "Leave It To Beaver" is hardly a standard of what real life was like in the 1950's -

Speaking as someone who lived the 1950's, I can assure you that family life as portrayed in "Leave it to Beaver" was actually quite accurate.

A family like Ozzie Osborn's would have been committed, or at least kept under observation and studied by science.

[johnnysannie]

Speaking as someone who lived the 1950's, I can assure you that family life as portrayed in "Leave it to Beaver" was actually quite accurate.

A family like Ozzie Osborn's would have been committed, or at least kept under observation and studied by science.


Ozzy's family is not normal NOW. Leave It To Beaver is and was a fantasy. Mothers didn't wear high heels and frilly dresses to cook; all dads didn't wear suits to the office. Take a reality check and remember that there were blue collar workers then as well as now and that working mothers have been around since before World War II.

Those rose colored glasses are far from flattering.

[Bravo]

thank you everyone.

i used the f-word pretty colorfully in the story, and wasnt sure if id get spanked for that. fortunately i didnt put anyt swear that starts w/ "mother" since i suspected that was a pretty modern adaptation.

im fine w/out using swear words if that's how it was (& since they can sometimes be a distraction) but i thought guys at war and under fire would cuss a bit more than most of society. and i think society would excuse them for that. :)

ill try to ask ask some vets, but thank you for the links and suggestions.

[Gary]

Ozzy's family is not normal NOW. Leave It To Beaver is and was a fantasy. Mothers didn't wear high heels and frilly dresses to cook; all dads didn't wear suits to the office. Take a reality check and remember that there were blue collar workers then as well as now and that working mothers have been around since before World War II.

Those rose colored glasses are far from flattering.

Sounds like you are trying to denigrate life in the 50’s, though I can’t imagine why you would want to do that.

No, not many mothers made dinner in high heels, but most mothers made meals for their families. They also wore dresses most of the time. The only time my mother wore slacks was in winter. She had work dresses and dress-up dresses. My grandmother even wore a dress when she milked the cows and worked in the hay field. My mother never wore slacks when she went shopping, even in winter.

Yes, there were single mothers working to support their children, but they were in a very small minority. Most families were intact, unless a parent died, because divorce was rare and frowned upon. Fathers mostly worked outside the home, and if you worked in an office, you wore a suit. There were no casual Fridays. Some blue-collar workers even wore a suit to work and changed when they got to the job. When I was working my blue-collar job, I even had one older co-worker who wore a white shirt and tie while working as a mechanic.

Families consisted of a mother, a father, children, and often an adult member of the family that needed help. There were no government welfare programs for adults and very few for children, so families took care of their own.

It also had nothing to do with blue-collar, or white-collar. Every segment of society shared the values of the time. My entire family was black-collar, because farm work made your collar that way, no matter what color it was in the morning.

Children were also pretty much like the Beaver and Wally. There were no drugs of any kind. Teachers were treated with respect, or the offending kids were sent home. Using vulgarity in school got you paddled the first time, and expelled the next. There were no schools dedicated to the offenders, so if you were kicked out, you found a job with the education you had. There were no X, or even R-rated movies to affect our culture. Music did not glorify breaking the law or mistreating women, nor did it advocate hostility of any kind.

There was no violence in school, except for an occasional fist-fight on the playground. There were no metal detectors or security patrols in schools. We often carried our .22 rifles to school and kept them in the cloakroom so we could go hunting during our lunch hour and after school. The teacher verified they were unloaded and we couldn’t do anything with them during recess.

There was almost no crime. I don’t know if our house even had a lock on the door, but I do know it was never locked, even when we left it for three months one winter. We also left the keys in all of our vehicles, as did everyone else. I never heard of a car being stolen anywhere near us.

Things weren’t perfect, but the color of my glasses doesn’t alter facts. Things were far different than they are now and in most ways, it was a much better way of life.

[Kate Thornton]

Gary,

You are right about things being different - and most of the things you mention mirror the way our family worked, too, except my mom was a nurse and had a part-time nursing job after we kids were in school. She wore a dress every day.

But when I think of how few choices my mother had - a pink collar career or a housewife - and how there was little to nothing in the way of birth control, no serious attention to womens health issues ("hysteria & hysterectomy" being the common diagnoses of the day) it saddens me. I remember career fields and universities closed to me because they didn't let "girls" do them.

I also remember segregated drinking fountains and no 911 system. No where to report child abuse, domestic abuse, or rape. Men who drank and ruled their families like absolute tyrants in closed kingdoms. Segregated schools. Dead end futures for anyone not white. These things hurt us.

I also remember living with the fear of nuclear war every single day - practicing "duck & cover" at school and talking about bomb shelters at home.

It was a different world, and I loved it and I miss much of it, but I think all things considered, I like this one better.

I live in a 1954 Cliff May house with a lot of original furnishings. I like to pretend Sid Ceasar will be on the TV and our old Nash Ambassador will be parked out front. I like to pretend my Mom is cooking dinner from scratch and Dad will be home from work soon and we will eat dinner together tonight.

But I know that they have been gone for 40 years and I'll be watching Jon Stewart on my flat screen and eating some miracle food that didn't even exist back then. Drinking soy milk, for crying out loud! Driving a foreign car.
Using a cell phone, a computer, air conditioning in the home!

You gotta admit, it's more exciting now. But you're right - we did not swear back then.

[Shadow_Ferret]

For what it's worth, my husband's dad was in WWII, and in the 25 years I knew him, I never once heard him (or his wife) swear. Not even a damn or hell. It wasn't all that unusual for a man to speak that 'clean' in those days, and to silently disapprove of men who swore, even mildly, in everyday conversation.

He wasn't wounded in service, but I truly can't imagine him swearing if he were. That language pattern just wasn't in him.

Maryn, who must have seemed like a longshoreman to her in-laws

This could also be a reaction to having swore a lot while in the service. I, and everyone I knew, punctuated every other word with a curse. It was almost a competition to see who could still communicate effectively while using colorful metaphors. (Granted I'm not old enough to be a WWII vet or even a Viet Nam vet, but still...)

When I got out, I was so burned out by swearing, I rarely did it.

Well, until I got married and had kids. But prior to that.... :)

[army_grunt13]

Yeah, the OED gives the first date in print for "fubar" as January 8,1944.

The prison camp lexicon also lists "snafu," "janfu" (joint Army-Navy f*ck up), GFU (general f*ck up), NFG (no f*cking good), and "Fujiyama" (f*ck you, Jack, I'm all right). Is Fujiyama really a profane word?? Just asking, because that is the name (exact spelling, too) of a sushi place that I go to for lunch!

[Kate Thornton]

Fujiyama is also (well, firstly) a place as in Mt. Fujiyama, Japan.

But like Bohica, DILIGASS & AMFYOYO - it is also part of our shared military lexicon.

BOHICA - Bend Over, Here It Comes Again
DILIGASS - Do I Look Like I Give a S**t?
AMFYOYO - painted on the underside of HUEY-1 choppers: Adios, M_F, You're On Your Own

Kate, CW3 Ret. US Army

[Fern]

Gary's post gives a pretty good accounting of what it was like in my area also.

Not sure what the "rose colored glasses" remark was about. I took his post as telling it like it was, not saying it was better either now or then.

[johnnysannie]

[QUOTE=Gary]Sounds like you are trying to denigrate life in the 50’s, though I can’t imagine why you would want to do that.

From from denigrating life in the Fifties, I'm being realistic.

I am a Baby Boomer myself.

I asked my mother today what people thought of "Leave It To Beaver" when it first appeared and she said most people ridiculed the show because it was so far outside reality.

If you want to remember your fantasy, enjoy it but I'm a cold hearted, hard headed realist.

I am a historian as well as writer.

But, no, I'm not trashing the Fifites.

[electric.avenue]

Apparently they did use the f word a lot.

There is a family tale of some relative who came home on leave in WWII, and was sitting having tea with his rather genteel family including parents, aunts, cousins, and so on. At some point in the proceedings, realising he was some distance from the sugar, he turned to the person next to him and said:

"Pass the f*cking sugar."

His mother's jaw nearly hit the table, so I'm told.

His younger cousins were ecstatic with the frisson so caused, and related the tale for years to come.

It was completely unintentional on his part. I wonder if he got a clip round the ear 'ole.

[Gary]

[quote=Gary]Sounds like you are trying to denigrate life in the 50’s, though I can’t imagine why you would want to do that.

From from denigrating life in the Fifties, I'm being realistic.

I am a Baby Boomer myself.

I asked my mother today what people thought of "Leave It To Beaver" when it first appeared and she said most people ridiculed the show because it was so far outside reality.

If you want to remember your fantasy, enjoy it but I'm a cold hearted, hard headed realist.

I am a historian as well as writer.

But, no, I'm not trashing the Fifites.

Let's make a deal. You don't refer to the way my life was lived during the 50's as a fantasy and I won't refer to your historical observations as myopic.

[johnnysannie]

It's not my desire to be contenious so I'll make a deal -
I'll stick with my facts and let you keep your memories.
I'm finished posting about this topic.

[James D. Macdonald]

Norman Mailer, in The Naked and the Dead, used fug because f*ck was unprintable when the book was published.

[SMG]

Just have the rougher people curse. I can almost guarantee you my grandpop didn't use the F word, but the S word is likely. I imagine it's hard not to curse in combat.

[spike]

[snipped]
Things weren’t perfect, but the color of my glasses doesn’t alter facts. Things were far different than they are now and in most ways, it was a much better way of life.

Yeah, better if you were a white male. But for the rest of us, things looked pretty bleak.

[army_grunt13]

Yeah, better if you were a white male. But for the rest of us, things looked pretty bleak. Touche! Granted, I'm a white male, but I still like things the way they are now. Is it perfect? Of course not. But then again people will ALWAYS look back on the "good old days," regardless of generation, and say that things were better. In spite of the Great Depression, I'm certain that my grandparents felt the same way.

Having served in combat, I can personally vouch that you still see both the "rough, swearing" types, and those who don't. I'm reminded of one Soldier we had who had been a missionary before (in fact, he got yanked from his mission to go to Iraq). He didn't drink, smoke, swear, or look at porn. Then there was another Soldier who swore incessantly, loved porn, smoked (though he made us promise not to send pics of him smoking home to his wife), and was all in all rather vulgar. Funny thing is, those two were inseperable. I told them both on several occasions that they were the biggest anomoly I had seen. You just couldn't pry those two apart.

As for me, I actually made it a point to curtail my profanity as much as possible. I admit that this had little to do with morality (I've heard chaplins drop some doozies!), but rather with context. I figured if I was going to be one of those types who used the F-word ten times in each sentence, then it would lose its effect when it did become applicable. Hence, when I did start dropping F-Bombs, my guys took note. :D

[graybeard]

Hello.
I am Destroyer veteran of Pacific war.
Swearing expressly forbidden on a United States warship punishable by Captain's Mast (mild courts martial).
F word extremely rare and used mostly when reminiscing about women both left back home and imagined.
Rarely used in anger or to describe something.
Men in combat feel their morality and wished to be prepared as possible for heaven should the occasion arise.
Hollywood just doesn't get it.
Men shot or fragged rarely said anything, some even smiled before dying.
John McCullough RM 3/c U.S.N. 1942 - 46

[Bravo]

really??

thank you graybeard.

ill have to think this over.

[johnnysannie]

From a veteran's memoirs:

http://www.gallagher.com/ww2/chapter30.html

"Probably the hardest adjustment to civilian life in the early stages was trying to clean up my language. In the Army, we all had been using four letter words as adjectives, especially when trying to make a point. While I had cleaned up my act considerably about the time we started MP duty, profanity had not been completely eliminated from my vocabulary. It really took some concentration to break the habit completely because it had been going on for years and just came out spontaneously. There were some real horror stories from my friends when someone would blurt out the "f" word in the middle of a family dinner. I did better than my brother Jim, who shocked the family with his descriptive phrases. It took several months before both of us broke the habit and we could talk to our parents without first thinking out each sentence before we spoke it."

Or consider this quote from General Patton:

"Patton had a unique ability regarding profanity. During a normal conversation, he could liberally sprinkle four letter words into what he was saying and the listeners would hardly take notice of it. He spoke so easily and used those words in such a way that it just seemed natural for him to talk that way.

He could, when necessary, open up with both barrels and let forth such blue-flamed phrases that they seemed almost eloquent in their delivery. When asked by his nephew about his profanity, Patton remarked, "When I want my men to remember something important, to really make it stick, I give it to them double dirty. It may not sound nice to some bunch of little old ladies at an afternoon tea party, but it helps my soldiers to remember. You can't run an army without profanity; and it has to be eloquent profanity. An army without profanity couldn't fight it's way out of a piss-soaked paper bag."


If I were in Bravo's shoes, I would write it as I envisoned it, profanity and all. Endless debates won't ever settle the question as some cursed, others didn't.

[gwendy85]

BTW, Bravo, I PMed you about this before, but I'm gonna add a little bit.

The father of my friend, the reason why he was cussing and using the F word so much was because after the Bataan Death March, he was sent to Japanese Prison camps. The Japanese stayed away from him because they all thought he was crazy and they had this superstition that if you killed a crazy person, the crazy ghost will come haunting you or something.

PS.
I'll be waiting for your take on my last PM :)

[eleniandthecards]

A great resource is urbandictionary.com. They have all swear-words galore, what they mean, when they originated.

[Stephen DeBock]

In the intro to his novel "The Caine Mutiny," Herman Wouk notes that he has sanitized the salty language of the naval officers in order not to offend the sensibilities of the readers. In my own home growing up, never a damn nor a hell was ever uttered; coarse language of any kind was strictly forbidden. You can imagine the culture shock when I entered the Marine Corps in 1959 at the tender age of 17 and met my drill instructors!

Eventually, the F-word became just another noun, verb, adjective, or adverb (how creative), but barracks lingo was totally different from what we spoke when amongst civilians. Swearing in the presence of women especially was just not done, and any woman who swore (sexist double standard; so sue me) was not considered a lady.

As Marines in uniform out in public, we also never swore, as that would diminish the uniform and the Corps we represented. You didn't have to be an officer to be a gentleman.

Speaking of: while on base, whereas sergeants prided themselves on their original profanity, our officers addressed the troops without swearing. And, returning to Parris Island for a moment, our DIs differentiated between profanity and obscenity, and one of them spelled it out for us toward the end of our recruit training. "We never called any of you a son of a b*, because that would be calling your mother a dog. And we never called you mother-f*ers, because that would mean you f* your mothers." Well, all right, then.

For an accurate take on creative cussing, look at the first 42 minutes of Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket." I'd been discharged some 20 years when that movie came out, and during the boot camp sequence I unconsciously sat at full attention. The movie focused on one DI, though; in fact, each platoon had three.

I know, more info than you aked for. But at the ripe old age of 231 (the Marine Corps' birthday is Nov. 10, 1775), my ramblings can be forgiven.

[Cav Guy]

Like any language, the use of cursing varied in WW2 based on a number of factors: religion (as someone pointed out before), social origin, the tone set by the unit commander, and other random factors. Officers tended to swear less than enlisted men, but again this can vary from unit to unit.

I would suspect that SOB was fairly common among troops from the West, since it was a very common term in use in that region since the mid 1800s. The "F-bomb" was also common. Patton came under some heat not because he cussed, but because some troops didn't expect their commanders to talk the way they (the troops) did. The Army, especially the elements of the Old Army found throughout the ranks during World War II, was a profane bunch.

[Marlys]

i used the f-word pretty colorfully in the story, and wasnt sure if id get spanked for that. fortunately i didnt put anyt swear that starts w/ "mother" since i suspected that was a pretty modern adaptation. Why suspect when it's so easy to look up? Here are a couple of OED citations that prove your suspicion wrong:1918 Let. in Jrnl. Amer. Hist. (1995) 81 1585 You low-down Mother F*ckers can put a gun in our hands but who is able to take it out?
1941 G. LEGMAN (http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-l.html#g-legman) in G. W. Henry Sex Variants II. 1172 The superlatively derogatory colloquial epithet, mother-f*cker.
Others that sound "modern" but were current in WWII: f*ckface, f*ckhead, royal f*ck.

[Ed Rogers]

My father and uncles were in ww2 and I grew on Army bases. There was, until the 60s a code about cussing in front of women. But out of their sight these men cussed with the best. There was a book written about it, I can't remember the name now, but it looked a cussing from Colonial day to present. In 1776 men were honored for their skill in cussing. SOB is a son of a dog. Until the American got a hole of it. Most cuss words in the world to day were invented in the good old USA. Use the words we use now and you'll be okl.http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/images/icons/icon7.gif Ed

[Vanatru]

Bump.

I was just needing this very info for a project my brother is working on.

To add my 12 cents. My great uncles who fought in that war.........never.........ever........swore in front of the kids. My dad who went on to serve in Korea never swore in front of us, or in front off anyone. I think the worst I ever heard from him was when he took the Christian gods name in vain.

I think I broke the tradition. I can't think of a bad word I have had the pleasure of using at least 6 times. Without being drunk at the time either. That would probably raise the number up to 20 times apiece.

[WittyandorIronic]

This was a long ago topic, but I only briefly saw my first thought mentioned...it all depended on rank. Both me and my husband were enlisted (not during WWII, heh) and we did and do cuss up a storm, but officers RARELY swore. And if you had a good officer, and they cussed, you knew you were SOL. These are rather recent experiences, but I can't imagine that was much different back then.
And soldiers talk to each other FAR differently than they talk to civilians. So cussing with my platoon buddies was one thing, it was far different to cuss in front of or to the civilian admins.

[Tsu Dho Nimh]

The phrase "swear like a trooper" didn't come into being because they talked like Little Lord Fauntleroy.

Both my father (Navy medic, was with Marine units for most of the war) and my Uncle (Marine) could and did swear fluently with the usual obscenities and blasphemies. But NEVER in front of women or children.

[johnnysannie]

The phrase "swear like a trooper" didn't come into being because they talked like Little Lord Fauntleroy.


Truth at last!!!!! While I realize that many folks didn't and don't swear, many did in World War II, in the Fifties, and long before. Back in college, one of the English professors did a lesson on the oldest words in the English language - shit, piss, and fuck.

I just re-read Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" in an edition with a foreword by Robert DeMott in which the writing of the book is detailed. One of the things I had not read before was that Steinbeck's agent suggested strongly that he remove the words "fuck", "shit", "screw" and "fat ass" from the MS. Steinbeck finally did but he had used those words because he had spent months living with migrant families who did use those words.

Such words have long been the vernacular - for military men and for many others in many situations.

[JoniBGoode]

My dad was born in 1904. He swore. He blasphemed, to be more exact - took the name of the Lord in vain, swore by Jesus Christ, Hell and damnation, damned people to hell.
He used 'son of a b*tch', sometime abbreviated to 'ess oh bee', 'b*stard', and 'bloody' (sometimes 'bloody-*ss'), and 'Christly' - these were often strung together in various combinations. He even used 'son of a sea-cook' (he'd been a cabin-boy in his early years, so I believe this may have had some particular relevance), an epithet I've otherwise only seen in books.
What he did NOT use were the sexual swear words that I learned in the schoolyard and from reading graffiti. He told me that those were 'baby words' for children who didn't know the real words for the body parts and activities. I haven't watched Deadwood, but I've heard they mostly swear with what my dad called baby words.
I'm pretty sure he would never have used any variant of mo-fo, because in the milieu where he grew up, I think if someone said that to you, you pretty much had to kill them, or at least beat them into insensibility. That's the impression I have.
-Barbara

Ditto. My dad was a WWII vet. He did not use cuss words in normal conversation, only when he was angry. Then he used SOB, bastard, hell, damn. In extreme cases, G*d dammit.

By the way, swearing of any type was absolutely verboten for women of that generation. Even saying crap was considered vulgar.

I never, ever heard my father say f**k or S**t or M***** F*****.

And, one variation that bugs me a lot in movies because it's used improperly.... a man absolutely never referred to another man as a b*tch or its variants (biatch? I never know how to spell it.) . That's strictly a modern term.

(If someone did, he would have been referring to the second man as his homosexual lover. And in those homophobic times in the military, one of them would probably have had to kill the other, to preserve their honor. Sad, but true.)

[donroc]

I served in the mid-1950s, and swearing depended upon the individual. This Californian liked best the southern imagery such as:

"The snow was asshole deep to a tall Indian."
"I made out like a tall dog in the short grass."
"You're from California? They ain't got nothing but hotrods and queers out there, and we don't see any wheels on you."

www.donaldmichaelplatt.com

[shakeysix]

my father was a marine in ww2. he operated an amphibious tractor and hit the beach movie style in places like iwo jima and saipan. he could swear. i heard him more than once. but no more than a dozen times in his lifetime. (this does not count his dealings with the federal dept. of agriculture. i figure they had it coming.) he died this spring at 83. once when my sister had a fish hook embedded in her knee and he and my grandfather were trying to dig it out w/ pocket knives my father called the hook " a slippery son of a bitch". my grandfather scolded him and dad apologized to us kids. that made an impression on me.

there is an old family story about my father's father, also ge helfrich. when he was fifteen he was working in the fields with his father and 4 of his brothers. (he had seven.) he was fiddling with an irrigation pump and it took his finger off. his older brother leo swore when he saw it happen. (leo had a rep for ducking into the pool hall when he went to town.)

their father, george valentin, made them all kneel in the field and pray because leo took the lord's name. my grandfather's finger was in his hat. no one looked at his finger until the prayer was over. later, in ww1, my grandfather enlisted. since he had no trigger finger he got into the brand new airforce.

his job? he fed and cared for the mules that pulled the old airplanes onto the runways. what better job for a nine fingered kansas plowboy?--s6

[reigningcatsndogs]

My father and uncles (Catholic prairie boys) were vets. Apart from the odd SOB, I never heard any of them swear, but that was probably because they would never do that in front of women or children. In his retirement my father worked as a detachment guard, and again he never swore excessively. That said, when I was a bit older and we were installing new flooring, Dad got incredibly frustrated and had us all rolling on the floor when he totally forgot I was there and came out with 'Jesus Christ, it's enough to make old people fuck." The first, last and only time he ever really cursed, and it still makes me chuckle!!

My FIN (Anglican brit), however, really did swear like a trooper, regardless of who was around him, and apparently had started that habit when he was five years old (his mother and sisters thought it was cute to hear a five year old tell the barber that because the haircut was so crappy, he wasn't getting paid a fucking cent). In the time I knew the man, he seriously could not utter a sentence without some expletive included.

Therefore I would think it would depend on the man, his personality, issues, family background, social status, religion, culture and maturity.



And I just have to ask, after reading through this thread, wouldn't comparing life in the fifties to 'Leave it to Beaver', be almost the same as comparing growing up in the seventies to 'The Brady Bunch'?

[dpaterso]

Anyone remember The Battle of the Bulge (1965) (http://imdb.com/title/tt0058947/)? That scene where the Germans demand the surrender of the 101st Airborne, surrounded and cut off at Bastogne, is based on fact. The puzzled Germans try to make sense of the American commander's reply: "Nuts." Polite officer-speak!

Carry on.

-Derek

[shakeysix]

but saying "nuts" could get you kicked out of school when i was a kid. fubar too. dork was another one. a dork is really a penis in a shell fish or mollusc or barnacle. something marine. my college comp kids had to read an essay by stephen jay gould where he talked about "dorks". as soon as the kids caught on to what a dork was, they would get all mumbly and red faced. even the biggest swearers. funny--s6

[johnnysannie]

I served in the mid-1950s, and swearing depended upon the individual. This Californian liked best the southern imagery such as:

"The snow was asshole deep to a tall Indian."
"I made out like a tall dog in the short grass."
"You're from California? They ain't got nothing but hotrods and queers out there, and we don't see any wheels on you."

www.donaldmichaelplatt.com

Don't forget the classics like "colder than a well digger's ass" or "built like a brick shithouse", just two of my Army dad's expressions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Or the Army breakfast dish he often made for us - SOS (which stands, of course, for shit on a shingle)

[shakeysix]

years ago in a state office some of several of us young social workers were sitting down to lunch. one of the girl's mother had sent creamed beef on toast as a warm up meal. some of us with military dads remarked on what our dads called that dish.

one social worker was appalled at our father's choice of language. she gasped and made some comment about white folks having potty mouths and said that her father, a navy vet, would never utter a vulgarity of that magnitude. in one of those real life moments that seem to be scripted from the movies mr. l.--a minister-- stepped into the lounge to see his daughter. he took one look at sylvia's lunch and chuckled "MMM-mmm. Shit on a shingle. I haven't seen that in years." it was a classic. even his daughter had to laugh.

so i guess we can't all vouch for what our dad's said in their service days. but i do know how people talked in the fifties. things were different then. not always better, just different. the thing i liked about those times was the lack of self pity. it was just not accepted. now it seems like we thrive on it--s6

[JoniBGoode]

Ozzy's family is not normal NOW. Leave It To Beaver is and was a fantasy. Mothers didn't wear high heels and frilly dresses to cook; all dads didn't wear suits to the office. Take a reality check and remember that there were blue collar workers then as well as now and that working mothers have been around since before World War II.

Those rose colored glasses are far from flattering.


I was born in 1955 and until I was 15, only one of my friends had a mother who worked (and she was considered very, very odd and masculine. Even though she was always impeccably made up, etc.) It simply wasn't the norm in the middle class.

Lower class women have always worked outside the home, becasue they had to. Often they were cooking, cleaning or caring for the children of the upper and middle classes. But it was very unusual for any woman who wasn't desperately poor to hold a job.

Most families only owned one car, which the man drove to work most days, so there wasn't really a way for the mother to get to work. Many men forbid their wives from working, because it "made them less of a man" if they couldn't support the family. My mother was an RN, but it never crossed her mind to work once she had a family.

[johnnysannie]

Lower class women have always worked outside the home, becasue they had to. O\\\\\.

Talk about class prejudices!!! I won't even respond to this because it makes me too angry to be rational. My mother worked for the US Goverment for pity's sake for the Social Security administration, far from a job for a lower class underpriveleged woman.

Leave It To Beaver is a fantasy, plain and simple. I've asked any number of senior citizens who agree - they lived it and they laugh at the idea that Beaver's family was the norm.

Leaving before I totally lose my cool.....................

[DonnaDuck]

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9781846031755&itm=1

There is a book for you for all of the slang that originated in WWII. Also, no one has mentioned Band of Brothers which, from my understanding, is as accurate as you can get for Hollywood, especially considering the consultants were the 101st Airborne, Easy Company themselves. Considering everything was taken from personal journals, you have men of all ages and classes meshing together. From the looks of it, the officers held their tongue a bit better than the enlisted men but it wasn't always the case. Major Winters, prior to him being a major, never swore, even when he and his men were neck-need on shells. Not once. It guess it just depended on the person.

My dad was a draftee in Vietnam. He actually went ape when he got to basic, swore up a storm to his range commander. When they brought him in to see the Colonel, swore up a storm to him too. Apparantly (from what my dad says), that's ok as long as you address them as Sir. For instance, he could have said "With all due respect, Sir, fuck you." and he would have covered himself with Sir. But he didn't. Went on a MoFo tirade to his CO. He wanted to send my dad to Levenworth for 15 years (maximum for insubordination at the time) but uh, well, it would have been unwise top turn him away. He ended up contracting for four years, 2 spent in the Philippines and was stripped of his ranks when he was dischanged (honorable). They tried activating him for the first Gulf War but he wouldn't go.

War is entirely subjective. Your best bet is to read journals, personal accounts of it because the answers are going to be across the board.

[Mike Martyn]

My father swore prodigiously.
One of his most frequent blasphemies was "Jesus H Christ".

I remember as a six year old asking my Sunday school teacher what the "H" stood for.

When we moved to Quebec my father began to use a bilingual profanity;
"Shit La Merde".

In 1962 when I was 11, I went on a very long rowing expedition with eight other boys ranging in age from 8 to 14 without any adult supervision. We were gone for a couple of weeks.

Think of a cross between Lord of the Flies and Stand By Me.

We sang a lot but what we sang could not have been found in the Book Of Common Praise. They were army marching songs that the boys had learned from older brothers who'd served in WW II or Korea. They we're splendidly vulgar.

It sounds perverse but it seemed funny at the time; watching a couple of eight year old boys puffing away on cigarettes, drinking beer and cursing like troopers!

A previously poster referred to 'shit on a shingle'. We knew that one but to use it meant hardtack smeared with peanut butter.

[tallus83]

General McAuliffe actually did say "Nuts" to the german offer of surrender at Bastogne.

Nothing was sanitized for the movie.

[JoniBGoode]

Talk about class prejudices!!! I won't even respond to this because it makes me too angry to be rational. My mother worked for the US Goverment for pity's sake for the Social Security administration, far from a job for a lower class underpriveleged woman.

Leave It To Beaver is a fantasy, plain and simple. I've asked any number of senior citizens who agree - they lived it and they laugh at the idea that Beaver's family was the norm.

Leaving before I totally lose my cool.....................


Sorry if I offended you. I would be the last person to insult any working women. Yes, there were certainly some middle- and upper-class women in the 1950s who choose to work. But, the proportion of middle-class women with children under 10 who worked was closer to 15%, where today I believe it is about 70%.

I'm not trying to say anything bad about the women who chose to work...I think it was a noble choice. I think your mother was a heroic trailblazer. I'm just pointing out that it wasn't the norm for the times. That's part of what makes her efforts so heroic.

Unfortunately, among the poor, a higher percentage of women worked. Then, like today, many of them just didn't have any choice. (BTW, I include myself in that group.)

Yes, Leave It To Beaver was a fantasy in many ways. Women DID wear dresses to vacume and do housework, but obviously not high-heels and pearls. I think more of the fantasy comes into play in the relationships between family members in LITB. But, in terms of most women with families staying home, LITB was fairly accurate.

I think what was important about LITB was that it was an idealization. It was how families in suburbia believed that they should be, not an accurate picture of how they really were.