Page 213 - down-and-out-in-paris-and-london

lic opinion chooses to make them. In this connexion it is
interesting to see how a swear word can change character
by crossing a frontier. In England you can print ‘JE M’EN
FOILS’ without protest from anybody. In France you have
to print it ‘JE M’EN F—‘. Or, as another example, take the
word ‘barnshoot’—a corruption of the Hindustani word
BAHINCHUT. A vile and unforgivable insult in India, this
word is a piece of gentle badinage in England. I have even
seen it in a school text-book; it was in one of Aristophanes’
plays, and the annotator suggested it as a rendering of some
gibberish spoken by a Persian ambassador. Presumably the
annotator knew what BAHINCHUT meant. But, because it
was a foreign word, it had lost its magical swear-word qual-
ity and could be printed.
One other thing is noticeable about swearing in London,
and that is that the men do not usually swear in front of the
women. In Paris it is quite different. A Parisian workman
may prefer to suppress an oath in front of a woman, but he
is not at all scrupulous about it, and the women themselves
swear freely. The Londoners are more polite, or more squea-
mish, in this matter.
These are a few notes that I have set down more or less
at random. It is a pity that someone capable of dealing with
the subject does not keep a year-book of London slang and
swearing, registering the changes accurately. It might throw
useful light upon the formation, development, and obsoles-
cence of words.

1 Down and Out in Paris and London