Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
The Question of Time: What Was Life Like in 1963?
Sheriff Roland:
--- Quote from: Kd5000 on March 03, 2007, 01:15:16 pm ---"Oh bugger!" So what does that mean. Or I've heard the wordchoice "Bugger" used in Brittish films when the character is really annoyed. Even the queen said it in THE QUEEN. Of course, nobody was around to hear her say it.
--- End quote ---
Probably a (slightly more acceptable) version of "Oh Fuck" Though it is NOT somethin that the queen a england would say. It may be percieved as dif'rent, bu that don't change it's origin!
my 2 (canadian) cents
serious crayons:
I think "oh, bugger!" is one of those curses in which the literal meaning of the word has kind of fallen by the wayside. At least when the queen says it! :laugh:
Shuggy:
Buggery refers to anal sex (so it has a somewhat narrower meaning than "sodomy" in the US). Offhand, I think only the penetrative partner is "guilty" of it. The penetrated is regarded as his "victim". But I'm not sure. The fact that in many of those years odd numbers were "offenders" implied they didn't always blame both parties.
Buggery was a very serious crime indeed, with a possible sentence of death until 1861. The last execution for it was in 1836. Although Lord Queensbury accused Oscar Wilde of being a "somdomite" and there was evidence at the trials of anal sex, he was charged with the lesser, more easily proved, crime of "gross indecency with a male" with a maximum sentence of two years at hard labour - enough to destroy Wilde's health and shorten his life.
Tommydreamer wrote:
--- Quote ---they kept these records or prosecuted people in the 1940-44 time period when they were being bombed relentlessly by Nazi Germany.
--- End quote ---
But you notice there is a dip in the figure for 1940. They probably had other things to do. Quentin Crisp and many others report that the blackouts were wonderful times for cruising. Not only the darkness, but people felt life was short and they should enjoy what they could. Even better after 1941, when thousands of healthy young American males were "over paid, over-sexed and over here".
The word is a very interesting one. From the French "bougre" and in turn from "Bulgari" it's cognate with Bulgaria and Balkan. It originally referred to kinds of heresy believed by those people (Bogomils), and as everyone knows, heretics are capable of anything, especially anal sex.
I doubt very much that the Queen would use it even in private, because she could never know for sure when nobody could hear her, and The Queen (Defender of the Faith) does not say "bugger". She would use the common euphemism "bother". If they have her saying that in the film, I think they went too far. (It reminds me of the scandal when Eliza Doolittle in Shaw's Pygmalian (1910) said "bloody". By the time it was turned into My Fair Lady (1958) people wouldn't have understood what the fuss was about, so it was up?graded to "bloody arse".)
"Bugger" has become very popular in New Zealand, after a series of Toyota TV advertisements in which that was the only dialogue. A series of mishaps involve a Toyota ute, underlining how unexpectedly powerful it is:
A Toyota is used to pull out a fence post. It goes flying through the air. Someone says "Bugger!"
It lands on a dunny (longdrop, outhouse), knocking it over. Someone inside says "Bugger!"
Mud from the wheels lands on some washing hanging on a rotary clothes line. The housewife says "Bugger!"
A dog runs to leap on to the back of the Toyota, but it's too fast and the dog lands in the mud. The dog says "Rurrah!"
So nobody thinks it's rude any more.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: latjoreme on March 03, 2007, 03:22:48 pm ---I think "oh, bugger!" is one of those curses in which the literal meaning of the word has kind of fallen by the wayside. At least when the queen says it! :laugh:
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Depends on which or what kind of "queen." ;D
And, of course, "Bugger off!" would be "Fuck off!"
As for the use of bloody in My Fair Lady, it's been awhile, but I think for the movie version they toned down that bloody to bloomin'.
Shuggy:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on March 03, 2007, 07:19:23 pm ---
And, of course, "Bugger off!" would be "Fuck off!"
--- End quote ---
The Royals are famous even for using euphemisms. Princess Anne famously told some photographers to "Naff off!" The word "naff" is Polari, the opposite of "bona" and in popular usage just means unfashionable, but is allegedly from the acronym for Not Available For Fucking.
--- Quote ---As for the use of bloody in My Fair Lady, it's been awhile, but I think for the movie version they toned down that bloody to bloomin'.
--- End quote ---
The Penguin script of the show says "bloomin' arse" but I was told that she said "bloody" on stage. In the song "Without you" she definitely winds up "So go back in your shell, I can do bloody well without you". Julie Andrews sings it on the record. "Bloomin' well" wouldn't cut across the footlights nearly so well.
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