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Google's n-gram viewer finds nothing in the 1800s for "watch your mouth" and the few instances between 1905 and 1910 refer to someone else watching your mouth.
It seems an odd admonishment. You can't watch your own mouth; at most you can watch a reflection in a mirror, or the image captured by a camera. And that's not what it means, anyhow.
It's not a redefinition of the words; Horatio Alger Jr's heroes watched their expenditures. But at some point it became a common idiom. It appears to be at the start of WWII. A 1941 novel by Thomas Bell, Out of this Furnace, has a character saying “If I were you I'd watch your mouth. I don't have to take that kind of talk from anybody." Obviously, it must have existed in the oral language first. Life published a couple of 1941 stories about The amazing Visual Research Eye-Cam saying that when you smile, people watch your mouth. And this was soon to be the era of "Loose Lips Sink Ships".
But the usage didn't really take off until the mid-60s. I suspect that with bigots resenting advances in civil rights, many were admonishing each other to be careful not to ignite violence, but that's simply a gut feeling, not backed with any evidence whatsoever. Usage continued to climb, until 2003, when it dropped. I can't think of any reason why it would have dropped then. Did another phrase start to get substituted? Did "if you see something, say something" in the wake of the 9/11 attacks discourage discretion? It would be interesting to see if Ferguson affects the ngram charts.
It probably started as "mind your mouth", which is still used with other body parts ("mind your feet" to warn someone of a tripping hazard, or "mind your tail" as we used to tell our cat to make sure he was all the way through a door before we closed it).
I tell people I'm watching my weight, then pat my belly and add "fortunately most of it's right out here in front of me where I can keep an eye on it".
We got a lot of "watch your mouth" growing up in the Midwest. On at least one occasion, I recall having to "wash my mouth out with soap" after uttering a 4-letter expletive. What that involved was biting the end off a soap bar while my mother monitored, and holding it in my mouth while she counted to 10. Not sure what now-banned ingredients they had in soap back in the 60s, but it burned like hell and took quite a bit of fresh water to wash out the bitter taste.
Speaking of 4-letter words, one of my neighbors argued today (not for the first time) that there's really only one forbidden word in the American language, and it's the c-bomb.
I follow musicians on Twitter that are always saying nigga this and nigga that. I think there are no whites among them. I myself am snow-blindness white, but when I was about 20, my mother her great-grandfather was of the Lo tribe. They were high-priced slaves because they were literate and could translate other African languages, so they were used as straw bosses. That's why so many in our family became writers, she said. My sister didn't believe it, and told me she was kidding, but a $99 DNA test is consistent with her tale. That would make my great-grandparent mulatto, my grandmother a quadroon, my mother a octoroon, and I'd be a mustefino, a quintaroon or a hexadecaroon, depending on your linguistic tastes. Invariably, there is no way to specify mustefino on a census form, a birth certificate, or a voter registration form.
Anyhow, it turns out that the c-bomb has been around since 1300 AD, and there appears to never have been a time when it was acceptable to use the term, for the anatomy, as an extreme offensive term for a despicable human being, or for sexual intercourse.
When I was an adolescent, other guys would refer to a female dog (technically, a bitch) in oestrus as a cun. I don't find that word anywhere on Google. I don't know if they misheard the c-bomb word, or what.
I'm sure a doctoral candidate in women's studies could write a bang-up (is that the right word to use?) thesis on why male chauvinists were to blame for that word being forbidden, and it was to blame for women being downtrodden, but heaven help the first guy who asks about her topic.
deaconB said
Speaking of 4-letter words, one of my neighbors argued today (not for the first time) that there's really only one forbidden word in the American language, and it's the c-bomb.
deaconB, I assume that 'c-bomb' is actually 'cunt'. Grant has a post on this page that says any word can be spelled out on this forum.
EmmettRedd said: Grant has a post on this page that says any word can be spelled out on this forum.
Thanks for the reminder EmmettRedd. I really wish there were a sticky post at the top of this discussion forum that explained things like that for new members. I'd also like to see it include some tips on how the post editor works, as I listed in this thread. Could you do that as Admin?
So while we're on that topic, I was recently on vacation in the Midwest and heard the expression "colder than a witch's left tit" used to describe the weather. Since moving to Arizona from Wisconsin, I can't say I've heard it in close to 20 years, possibly because it rarely gets that cold here. Here's the etymology according to Urban Dictionary, which seems to make sense.
My question to other forum members who live in warmer climes, have you heard this expression? Or is it just a Midwest thing?
Heimhenge said
Thanks for the reminder EmmettRedd. I really wish there were a sticky post at the top of this discussion forum that explained things like that for new members. I'd also like to see it include some tips on how the post editor works, as I listed in this thread. Could you do that as Admin?
No, the webmaster would have to do that. I was given Admin powers because I was often sending messages to Grant to delete spam posts and he decided to trust me to do that on my own. (There are other things I can do but have probably used less than half of them.)
So while we're on that topic, I was recently on vacation in the Midwest and heard the expression "colder than a witch's left tit" used to describe the weather. Since moving to Arizona from Wisconsin, I can't say I've heard it in close to 20 years, possibly because it rarely gets that cold here. Here's the etymology according to Urban Dictionary, which seems to make sense.
My question to other forum members who live in warmer climes, have you heard this expression? Or is it just a Midwest thing?
I have only heard it without the "left". (And, I'm from southwest Missouri.) There is also "colder than a well digger's ass".
EmmettRedd said
deaconB said
Speaking of 4-letter words, one of my neighbors argued today (not for the first time) that there's really only one forbidden word in the American language, and it's the c-bomb.
deaconB, I assume that 'c-bomb' is actually 'cunt'. Grant has a post on this page that says any word can be spelled out on this forum.
I was aware of that policy, but it doesn't demand that we use it. As a general rule, I freely quote people saying it, but I prefer to use the euphemism myself, rather than the raw word, except in private, in an affectionate context. I appear crippled by my lack of a poor upbringing. I don't think anyone failed to understand what I was talking about
I think there's a illustrative example in "Inside The Actor's Studio", each entertainer was asked a short list of questions, and the answers were often the most revealing part of the interview.
Here's the YouTube of Robin Williams' responses. , which bleeps the c-bomb. When they aired the show on Bravo, they didn't bleep it. On the other hand, iMDB edited Robin Williams' responses, leaving in the c-bomb, but deleting much that made Williams' responses so revealing:
Host: What's your favorite word?
Robin Williams: Cloaca. It's a real word. It exists because it's, uh, only certain bugs have it. It's a combination asshole and vagina. Next to that I think "abbondanza" is a great word.
Host: What's your least favorite word?
Robin Williams: Cunt. Least favorite word because it's so negative. It's the one word that'll get me kicked out of the house. I once let it fly, it was like
[mimes door slam and makes noise]
Robin Williams: , okay, that was it, bye, bye-bye.
Host: What turns you on?
Robin Williams: My wife's laugh. It's incredible.
[audience goes "awwww"]
Robin Williams: That noise, "awwww". But yeah, it's quite wonderful.
Host: What turns you off?
Robin Williams: Violence towards children.
Host: What sound or noise do you love?
Robin Williams: [makes fart sound] Because it's musical, it could be anything. It's the most humanizing noise. To know that even the Pope could be going "Quanda la giura..."
[makes fart sound]
Robin Williams: And that's when the bring out the smoke, you know.
[mimes swinging censer, says phony Italian words]
Host: What sound or noise do you hate?
Robin Williams: Screeching of brakes. Because it usually implies something is gonna happen.
Host: What's your favorite curse word?
Robin Williams: It's my favorite because I'm a big fan. Pussy.
Host: What profession other than yours would you like to attempt?
Robin Williams: Neurologist or theoretical physicist. Those are the people I kinda admire.
Host: What profession would you not like to participate in?
Robin Williams: Bomb tester.
Host: If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
Robin Williams: "There's seating near the front. The concert begins at 5. It'll be Mozart, Elvis, and one of your choosing." Or just nice, if heaven exists, to know that there's laughter, that'd be a great thing. Just to hear God go, "Two Jews walk into a bar...".
It's curious that George got credit for the "seven words you can never say on television" because of objections the FCC received when WBAI broadcast Carlin's routine, but nobody seems to know that Lenny Bruce was the one who originated a list consisting of Carlin's seven plus ass and balls. Bruce, Carlin, Williams, all gone. All great men are dead or dying, I don't feel so great, myself.
To stray just a bit from the topic, this line: All great men are dead or dying, I don’t feel so great, myself reminds me of this poem, from Arthur Guiterman.
"On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness"
The tusks which clashed in mighty brawls
Of mastodons, are billiard balls.
The sword of Charlemagne the Just
Is Ferric Oxide, known as rust.
The grizzly bear, whose potent hug,
Was feared by all, is now a rug.
Great Caesar's bust is on the shelf,
And I don't feel so well myself.
faresomeness said
"On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness"
Reminds me of the poem "Indispensable Man" by Saxon White Kessinger.
faresomeness said
To stray just a bit from the topic, this line: All great men are dead or dying, I don’t feel so great, myself reminds me of this poem, from Arthur Guiterman.*
My mother, and eventually all my siblings and myself, repeated that all the time to each other and eventually to others. I never thought it was something she came up with by herself, although she was creative and witty; I figured she lifted it from George Burns, or perhaps from some other humorist with a radio show. Whether They inspired Guiterman or were inspired by him, I don't know; maybe Momma got it directly from Guiterman's poem. Or maybe it all goes back to something Samuel Clemens said.
In any case, I don't claim to be the originator. And I thank you for Guiterman's poem. I don't recall seeing it before.
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