What do you think?
Rate this book
Classic American Graffiti: Lexical Evidence from Folk Epigraphy in Western North America
Book by Allen Walker Read
- GenresLanguage
83 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
30 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 20, 2017
This was delightful! Shithouse poets of the 1920s and 1930s. Academic analysis! Yes!
When this was first published in 1935, it was done privately with a stern warning on the title page that it was only to be circulated to "students of linguistics, folk-lore, abnormal psychology, and allied branches of the social sciences." So you know it's going to be good.
Read is wonderfully open-minded and sensible in the introductory material before he gets in to his glossary. He rightly recognizes that taboo words are only such because some humans empower them thus. Two favorite bits:
"It is sometimes said that these words should be avoided because they are used exclusively by people of a low social class; but this is a specious rationalization fabricated in order to inculcate the taboo into children. These stigmatized words are known to all social classes, and the principal early records of the worst of them are from the writings of members of the British peerage."
and
"Is it the right 'level of usage' to seek out a long Latin derivative in order to describe a process that is normal and habitual to to every human being? The word defecate would be fitting for a process carried out with sterilized silver tube under the supervision of a doctor, but not for an act so commonplace in everyone's life. That any one should pass up the well established colloquial words of the language and have recourse to the Latin defecate, urinate, and have sexual intercourse, is indicative of grave mental unhealth."
!!
Also surprising: pee, stink, and spit were once so vulgar is to be avoided by polite speakers.
A fun quick read for the most casual students of the specified disciplines. My only complaint is that some of the "poetry" is repeated to illustrate many different words. And I would love to know if someone has done a study using this or other material of gay culture in the era Read worked. Read is open-minded and straightforward about the gay inscriptions he covers, which was also a nice surprise. (Read also notes that graffiti from ladies' rooms is omitted from his study. Too bad!)
When this was first published in 1935, it was done privately with a stern warning on the title page that it was only to be circulated to "students of linguistics, folk-lore, abnormal psychology, and allied branches of the social sciences." So you know it's going to be good.
Read is wonderfully open-minded and sensible in the introductory material before he gets in to his glossary. He rightly recognizes that taboo words are only such because some humans empower them thus. Two favorite bits:
"It is sometimes said that these words should be avoided because they are used exclusively by people of a low social class; but this is a specious rationalization fabricated in order to inculcate the taboo into children. These stigmatized words are known to all social classes, and the principal early records of the worst of them are from the writings of members of the British peerage."
and
"Is it the right 'level of usage' to seek out a long Latin derivative in order to describe a process that is normal and habitual to to every human being? The word defecate would be fitting for a process carried out with sterilized silver tube under the supervision of a doctor, but not for an act so commonplace in everyone's life. That any one should pass up the well established colloquial words of the language and have recourse to the Latin defecate, urinate, and have sexual intercourse, is indicative of grave mental unhealth."
!!
Also surprising: pee, stink, and spit were once so vulgar is to be avoided by polite speakers.
A fun quick read for the most casual students of the specified disciplines. My only complaint is that some of the "poetry" is repeated to illustrate many different words. And I would love to know if someone has done a study using this or other material of gay culture in the era Read worked. Read is open-minded and straightforward about the gay inscriptions he covers, which was also a nice surprise. (Read also notes that graffiti from ladies' rooms is omitted from his study. Too bad!)
November 21, 2024
This was a Read for sure
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews