Ever since September 2013, I have delved into the world of Jane Austen and her language. Both in her published novels and her manuscripts available through the amazing website: http://www.janeausten.ac.uk/index.html.
During class last week, we talked about swearing and taboo words in Jane Austen and that there is this idea that there is no such thing as these concepts in Jane Austen. However, in my search of interjections throughout Jane Austen’s works, I came across instances where intercourse was the topic of the conversation. Intercourse as a word appears as well but back in Jane Austen’s time this referred to conversations and the act that we can denote by it nowadays.
While looking through the interjections, I came across La. Since I had never seen this interjection before, I looked it up in the OED and found that it meant the following: “An exclamation formerly used to introduce or accompany a conventional phrase or an address, or to call attention to an emphatic statement. In recent use, a mere expression of surprise.”
I stumbled upon this interesting conversation between Sense and Sensibility’s Elinor and Anne Steele:
“I do not understand what you mean by interrupting them,” said Elinor;
“you were all in the same room together, were not you?”
“No, indeed, not us. La! Miss Dashwood, do you think people make love
when any body else is by? Oh, for shame! – To be sure you must know
better than that. (Laughing affectedly.) – No, no; they were shut up in
the drawing-room together, and all I heard was only by listening at the
door.”
Aha! Jane Austen refers to intercourse as making love! Using a program such as WordSmith Tools you can look through a huge amount of data in a simple way. By running a Concordance search (where you can see the words in their context), I found a total of 8 instances (3 in Pride and Prejudice, 2 in Sense and Sensibility, 1 in Persuasion, Mansfield Park and Lady Susan).
So what about cursing?
When looking through the exclamation marks to find interjections (by using *! in Concondance), I came across Oh! D – in Northanger Abbey. Lo and behold! Swear words! Swear words in Jane Austen!:
‘Ah! Thorpe,’ said he, ‘do you happen to want such a little thing as
this? It is a capital one of the kind, but I am cursed tired of it.’
‘Oh! D – ,‘ said I; ‘I am your man; what do you ask?’
And how much do you think he did, Miss Morland?”
~~
“Thank ye,” cried Thorpe, “but I did not come to Bath to drive my
sisters about, and look like a fool. No, if you do not go, d — me if I
do. I only go for the sake of driving you.”
John Thorpe seems to be the only person to curse in Northanger Abbey and a friend of Thorpe’s described by him as a “Christchurch man, a friend of mine, a very good sort of fellow“. In Mansfield Park, Mr. Price is the only one to ‘curse’ as well. He, as so eloquently can be formulated, takes the Lord’s name in vain:
The Thrush went out of harbour this morning. Sharp is the
word, you see! By G – , you are just in time!
~~
But, by G – ! if she belonged to _me_, I’d give her the rope’s end as long as
I could stand over her.
This use of God is not necessarily meant as a curse but it carries a negative undertone which is why, in this case, God is written as G – (originally G–, i.e. G followed by a dash). Compare this with Mansfield Park’s Edmund use of God:
“Thank God,” said he. “We were all disposed to wonder, but it seems to
have been the merciful appointment of Providence that the heart which
knew no guile should not suffer.
Here using God is clearly not meant in a negative way but in a positive way and is therefore written in full and not censored just as G– and D– had been as is demonstrated above.
Are there any more taboo words in Jane Austen? Which taboo words or swear words were there back in the late 18th and beginning of the 19th century? How about taboo and swear words in other works around that time? Were it predominantly men that used it as well? Or gossiping women talking about making love?
It might be an interesting subject well worth looking into!
Much love!
References:
Bree, L., Sabor, P, and Todd, J. (2013). Jane Austen’s Manuscript Works. Claremont: Broadview Editions.
Jane Austen’s works were accessed through Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/
OED Entry: La, int.
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