Hobby-Horse
June 02, 2010

Was anything from the Bible considered a swear back then? Anything referencing a bad place, anyway? And even anything that was a euphemism for a bad place or thing? Example from "Kit of Greenacre Farm":
"Was he heading this way?" the Judge asked. "I want him to look at my peach trees and tell me what in tunket ails them."

"Why, Judge, I'm surprised at you, and before the children, too." Cousin Roxy's eyes twinkled with mirth at having caught the Judge in a lapse.

"I only said tunket, Roxy," he began, but Cousin Roxy cut him short.

"Tunket's been good Connecticut for Tophet ever since I was knee high to a toadstool, and we won't say anything more about that."

Tophet, Tunket, wtf?

Also; It seems like any expression or term less than two hundred years old was considered to be slang. It was popping up constantly in The Moving Picture Girls, although nothing they say would sound overtly slangy to our ears today:
"Bosh!" laughed Alice. "Excuse my slang, sister mine..."

"But if there's a slip, and they ride into you--good-night! Excuse my slang," he added, hastily.

"There'll be no fake about this--if you'll excuse the use of slang," he added.

"It's like a vacation," agreed Alice. "Oh, but isn't it just--just too--"
She was evidently searching for a fitting simile.
"Alice," warned Ruth, gently. She was endeavoring to wean her sister from the habit of using slang expressions; but Alice always boasted that she liked to take "short cuts," and that slang--that is, her refined variety--offered the best method of accomplishing this very desirable object.
"Well, it's certainly SWELL--that's my word for it," answered Russ, with a frank laugh.

It was also emphasized several times in the Grace Harlowe and Ruth Fielding books, if I recall correctly. And going back even earlier, there is a big chunk of "Eight Cousins" that deals with Rose and Aunt Jessie persuading Will and Geordie to abandon the habit of slang, as well. I suppose that these stories, being aimed at youngsters, were written to supply instruction, as well as entertainment. And I read series books for GIRLS--I imagine the discouragement of slang is emphasized even more in the books aimed at young boys.

Finally--unlike slang, geographic accuracy seemed to have no emphasis put on it at all. Especially incomprehensible to me, but then, I live on Lake Michigan, about 60 miles from Chicago. But I defy anyone, whether you are from this area or not, to make sense of the following from "Kit":
"It's a little college town on Lake Nadonis, about twelve miles inland from Lake Michigan, and perhaps sixty miles north of Chicago, on the big bluffs that line the shore nearly all the way to Milwaukee.

On the shore, twelve miles inland, in an area that doesn't have bluffs over the lake�Mmmmkay�call it a bit of artistic license, or just bad writing. But add the fact that the mailman had, just a few paragraphs earlier, expressly stated that the letter from the place described was from MICHIGAN, and that the main character lumped this place in with "...out west somewhere. Not the real west, either; I mean the interesting west like Saskatchewan and Saskatoon and--and California; you know what I mean, Jean?" and it gets seriously weird. Saskatchewan AND Saskatoon? Southeast Wisconsin = Michigan = Western Canada = Califoria?

Inexcusable.