When we come to words, that, either intrinsically or by usage, are improper, a great many curious differences between English and American reveal themselves. The Englishman, on the whole, is more plain-spoken than the American, and such terms as /bitch/, /mare/ and /in foal/ do not commonly daunt him, largely, perhaps, because of his greater familiarity with country life; but he has a formidable index of his own, and it includes such essentially harmless words as /sick/, /stomach/, /bum/ and /bug/. The English use of /ill/ for /sick/ I have already noticed, and the reasons for the English avoidance of /bum/. /Sick/, over there, means nauseated, and when an Englishman says that he was /sick/ he means that he vomited, or, as an American would say, was /sick at the stomach/. The older (and still American) usage, however, survives in various compounds. /Sick-list/, for example, is official in the Navy,[31] and /sick-leave/ is known in the Army, though it is more common to say of a soldier that he is /invalided home/. /Sick-room/ and /sick-bed/ are also in common use, and /sick-flag/ is used in place of the American /quarantine-flag/. But an Englishman hesitates to mention his stomach in the presence of ladies, though he discourses freely about his liver. To avoid the necessity he employs such euphemisms as /Little Mary/. As for /bug/, he restricts its use very rigidly to the /Cimex lectularius/, or common bed-bug, and hence the word has a highly impolite connotation. All other crawling things he calls /insects/. An American of my acquaintance once greatly offended an English friend by using /bug/ for /insect/. The two were playing billiards one summer evening in the Englishman's house, and various flying things came through the window and alighted on the cloth. The American, essaying a shot, remarked that he had killed a /bug/ with his cue. To the Englishman this seemed a slanderous reflection upon the cleanliness of his house.[32] [Pg126]
The Victorian era saw a great growth of absurd euphemisms in England, including /second wing/ for the leg of a fowl, but it was in America that the thing was carried farthest. Bartlett hints that /rooster/ came into use in place of /cock/ as a matter of delicacy, the latter word having acquired an indecent significance, and tells us that, at one time, even /bull/ was banned as too vulgar for refined ears. In place of it the early purists used /cow-creature/, /male-cow/ and even /gentleman-cow/.[33] /Bitch/, /ram/, /buck/ and /sow/ went the same way, and there was a day when even /mare/ was prohibited. Bache tells us that /pismire/ was also banned, /antmire/ being substituted for it. In 1847 the word /chair/ was actually barred out and /seat/ was adopted in its place.[34] These were the palmy days of euphemism. The delicate /female/ was guarded from all knowledge, and even from all suspicion, of evil. "To utter aloud in her presence the word /shirt/," says one historian, "was an open insult."[35] Mrs. Trollope, writing in 1832, tells of "a young German gentleman of perfectly good manners" who "offended one of the principal families ... by having pronounced the word /corset/ before the ladies of it."[36] The word /woman/, in those sensitive days, became a term of reproach, comparable to the German /mensch/; the uncouth /female/ took its place.[37] In the same way the legs of the fair became /limbs/ and their breasts /bosoms/, and /lady/ was substituted for /wife/. /Stomach/, under the ban in England, was transformed, by some unfathomable magic, into a euphemism denoting the whole region from the nipples to the pelvic arch. It was during [Pg127] this time that the newspapers invented such locutions as /interesting/ (or /delicate/) /condition/, /criminal operation/, /house of ill/ (or /questionable/) /repute/, /disorderly-house/, /sporting-house/, /statutory offense/, /fallen woman/ and /criminal assault/. Servant girls ceased to be seduced, and began to be /betrayed/. Various French terms, /enceinte/ and /accouchement/ among them, were imported to conceal the fact that lawful wives occasionally became pregnant and had lyings-in.