HBOs Deadwood and language

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - HBOs Deadwood and language

Posted: 1/15/2006 6:54:03 PM EDT

For some reason, I seriously doubt that in the late 1800 in rural South Dakota, even in a mining town like Lead or Deadwood that every 15th word you heard was "Fucking". I mean I am an adult, and use the word myself often, but the frequency of its use on that show shacks me. Anyone else notice this?

Aviator

Posted: 1/15/2006 6:58:01 PM EDT

[#1]

That word has been around a loooooong time.

I've seen interviews with historians of the period who claim that the show is very realistic.
Maybe not 100%, but certainly more than "Bonanza" and "Gunsmoke".

Posted: 1/15/2006 6:58:55 PM EDT

[#2]

So only educated and polite fucks went out west for shit-for-wages money, and the fucking whores to service them?

Get real!

Criminals, poor dumbasses and whores were most of "settlers"

Posted: 1/15/2006 7:00:22 PM EDT

[#3]

<Calamity Jane> Cocksucker. </Calamity Jane>

Posted: 1/15/2006 7:00:43 PM EDT

[#4]

Has a new season begun? I watched it all last year.

Posted: 1/15/2006 7:00:56 PM EDT

[#5]

Oh, I know it was not a real polite society, but I still doubt they said FUCK that much. I mean you cannot go two or three sentances without hearing it in the show.

Aviator

Posted: 1/15/2006 7:01:12 PM EDT

[#6]

They use the word co<ksucker a lot too. Seems to work well though.

Posted: 1/15/2006 7:02:37 PM EDT

[#7]

I am "obtaining" the entire fucking second season right now!

Posted: 1/15/2006 7:03:37 PM EDT

[#8]

f*ck, I don't know what the f*cking deal is, about complaining about saying f*ck, too f*cking much.

Actually, it is a bit overkill and the only thing I don't care for about the show - then again f*ck it

Posted: 1/15/2006 7:06:04 PM EDT

[#9]

That Chinese guy loves the word cocksucker. I think that is about the only word in English he knows. That one episode where he got all worked up, and all he kept saying was cocksucker still makes me chuckle.

Posted: 1/15/2006 7:07:12 PM EDT

[#10]

I don't know if they used it back then History of the F word

Considering it's HBO they tend to interject the F-word into every show. My mom said she was watching "Sex and the City" and she fell asleep. When she awoke every other word was "F", "F", "F".

She was watching "The Sopranos."

Posted: 1/15/2006 7:10:22 PM EDT

[#11]

San FranCisco Cocksucker!

Posted: 1/15/2006 7:14:16 PM EDT

[#12]

Quoted:
San FranCisco Cocksucker!

Posted: 1/15/2006 7:14:47 PM EDT

[#13]

newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/people/columns/intelligencer/n_10191/

Jesse Sheidlower, the American editor of the Oxford English Dictionary and the scholar of cussing who wrote The F-Word, says probably not. Not that frontiersmen were genteel. “There were cursing contests when cowboys would get together and insult each other,” he says. But “the evidence that we have is that they were using more religious blasphemy than the sexual insults which are popular today.” And on the show.

As with his earlier boundaries-of-taste-pushing series, NYPD Blue, Milch’s dialogue is designed to let viewers know they’ve entered a world with different standards. So fuck or fucking is used 43 times in the first episode of Deadwood. Sheidlower agrees that the F-word was in use back then. But he says most of the nonsexual uses of it—as an intensifier, for example—didn’t come about until around World War I.

“Motherfucker, as far as anyone knows, was not in use at the time,” he adds. “There are examples of ‘mother fucking’ from court cases in Texas in the late 1880s.” (It was used as an insult.) However, “the word itself doesn’t show up until late nineteen-teens.”

Posted: 1/15/2006 7:24:09 PM EDT

[#14]

Quoted:
That Chinese guy loves the word cocksucker. I think that is about the only word in English he knows. That one episode where he got all worked up, and all he kept saying was cocksucker still makes me chuckle.

I've got the audio of that scene on CD. I laugh everytime I listen to it. The chinese guy has a very bad habit of breaking up and laughing during his dialogs, so the director always takes the first one that he makes it all the way through. It makes it tough on the rest of the cast because they have to be on their game everytime they work with him. The fact that they got that one done was something of a miracle.

Posted: 1/15/2006 7:41:53 PM EDT

[#15]

They mostly used "God Damned" rather than "Fucking" as an intensifier back then, but the makers of the show felt it wouldn't have the same shock effect today that it did in the 19th Century.

Posted: 1/15/2006 9:36:47 PM EDT

[#16]

Sorry dude. I was in the military and every 10th word we used was four letters. So, I can believe such a thing about an 1870's mining camp full of ruffians, murderers, cheats, cons, and prostitutes.

The dialogue is the best part about deadwood.

Posted: 1/15/2006 9:40:31 PM EDT

[#17]

Quoted:
San FranCisco Cocksucker!

Ohh the irony!!

Posted: 1/15/2006 9:41:04 PM EDT

[#18]

how about using the term "shacks me" wtf is that??

Posted: 1/15/2006 9:42:02 PM EDT

[#19]

Quoted:
That Chinese guy loves the word cocksucker. I think that is about the only word in English he knows. That one episode where he got all worked up, and all he kept saying was cocksucker still makes me chuckle.

He deserves an award for that scene.

Posted: 1/15/2006 9:43:45 PM EDT

[#20]

Quoted:
For some reason, I seriously doubt that in the late 1800 in rural South Dakota, even in a mining town like Lead or Deadwood that every 15th word you heard was "Fucking". I mean I am an adult, and use the word myself often, but the frequency of its use on that show shacks me. Anyone else notice this?

Aviator

If you buy the Deadwood Season 1 DVD set there is a really great interview with David Milch (writer/producer) about the language and cursing. He goes into a lot of details about accounts from the period and said that they actually toned down some of the cursing! The very complicated sentence structure intermingled with blasphemous utterings is also a valid linguistic reproduction.

Posted: 1/15/2006 9:43:49 PM EDT

[#21]

Quoted:
That Chinese guy loves the word cocksucker. I think that is about the only word in English he knows. That one episode where he got all worked up, and all he kept saying was cocksucker still makes me chuckle.

thats aweseome! cracks me up too.

Posted: 1/15/2006 10:14:16 PM EDT

[#22]

God dammed limber dick cock sucker.

Posted: 1/16/2006 1:02:33 AM EDT

[#23]

It bothered me too, but Al has grown on me.

Cocksucker.

Posted: 1/16/2006 1:21:42 AM EDT

[#24]

Al is my role model. And anybody that has a problem with that can go fuck themselves.

Posted: 1/16/2006 7:12:17 AM EDT

[#25]

Quoted:
Sorry dude. I was in the military and every 10th word we used was four letters. So, I can believe such a thing about an 1870's mining camp full of ruffians, murderers, cheats, cons, and prostitutes.

The dialogue is the best part about deadwood.

Damn, every 10th? Its like every 4th fucking word for us.

Posted: 1/16/2006 7:18:43 AM EDT

[#26]

Quoted:
Al is my role model. And anybody that has a problem with that can go fuck themselves.

A big +1, you fucking cocksuckers!!!

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - HBOs Deadwood and language

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