Trivia request!: When was the 1st time swearing was allowed in a British film?!

[kelp]

JOHNNY DANGEROUSLY. "YOU FARGIN ICEHOLES". "YOU SONS OF BASTAGES" "I'm A KNOWA MY FARGIN RIGHTS". "YOU CORKSUCKERS", but all said in wicked foreign accent.

Also, didn't Audrey Hepburn say "Come On Move Your Bleedin Arse" at the races in "My Fair Lady"?

[Steve Crook]

name='kelp' date='04 July 2010 - 08:14 PM' timestamp='1278270886' post='447770']

Also, didn't Audrey Hepburn say "Come On Move Your Bleedin Arse" at the races in "My Fair Lady"?

It was "Come on, Dover, move yer bloomin' arse!"



Steve

[HUGHJAMPTON]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I64ewblmTUY[/media]



At just over the one minute mark, if actions speak louder than words.

[Westengland]

name='dylan' date='02 July 2010 - 07:56 AM' timestamp='1278057387' post='446658']

the rhyming slang word "Berk" (Berkshire Hunt)

In West England we think this is from the Berkeley Hunt, in the old pronunciation (London has never had a monopoly on rhyming slang*)



I wonder whether "See You Next Time/Tuesday/Thursday" was ever slipped into a script and onto the screen in the old days?



Re. the above post: in San Demetrio London, Charles Pollard (Walter Fitzgerald) gives a friendly "Mate Elsewhere" V-sign to some other sailors.



*@Hughjampton

Have you explained your user name to our foreign members, such as Mej. Onedin?

[HUGHJAMPTON]

name='Westengland' date='05 July 2010 - 05:53 PM' timestamp='1278348837' post='448086']





*@Hughjampton

Have you explained your user name to our foreign members, such as Mej. Onedin?

I'm still waiting for someone to explain it to me.

[Zlatna]

name='HUGHJAMPTON' date='06 July 2010 - 12:45 AM' timestamp='1278391549' post='448254']

I'm still waiting for someone to explain it to me.

[chuffnobbler]

name='CaptainWaggett' date='01 July 2010 - 02:19 PM' timestamp='1277990364' post='446480']

Surely the 'bloody' in Pygmalion predates that (and it's a word that's still taboo on the BBC before the watershed. There was a fracas about it slipping into The Archers only a few years ago).

Is "bloody" taboo on the Beeb before the watershed? I am sure there were a couple of "crap" and "sh1t" on The News Quiz, recently. I was most surprised.



I watched some very early EastEnders, a little while back, and was shocked to hear Lou Beale mention "Pakis".



From my 1980s childhood, i remember a BBC Family Drama (I wish they still did those...) called December Rose, which had a Victorian Street Urchin saying "bloody".

[CaptainWaggett]

name='chuffnobbler' date='06 July 2010 - 05:16 PM' timestamp='1278432969' post='448534']

Is "bloody" taboo on the Beeb before the watershed? I am sure there were a couple of "crap" and "sh1t" on The News Quiz, recently. I was most surprised.



I watched some very early EastEnders, a little while back, and was shocked to hear Lou Beale mention "Pakis".



From my 1980s childhood, i remember a BBC Family Drama (I wish they still did those...) called December Rose, which had a Victorian Street Urchin saying "bloody".

Apparently it is, (if Feedback is to be believed) though it slips through occasionally (as it did in The Archers). I suspect not every BBC editor is fully aware of The Rules though. I'm fairly sure you won't hear it in Eastenders or Doctor Who - maybe your street urchin was instantly flogged and transported (and rightly so).



Another piece of Archers related controversy - about 10 years ago, Anna Ford on the Today programme aroused the wrath of Radio 4 listeners by calling a character (Simon Pemberton, since you asked) a sh*t . Obviously I cancelled my licence at once.

[Arthur Linden-Jones]

name='ShirlGirl' date='02 July 2010 - 01:54 AM' timestamp='1277996067' post='446496']

I've always thought that the emphasis on "give" instead of on "damn" very odd indeed and have wondered why Gable did that.

I agree. As famous as the line is, given that delivery it just doesn't seem to "work" for me.

[doojeen]

I like the chatacter from the Michael Keaton film Johnny Dangerously who can't quite get swearing right. He says " You icehole!" and "Fargin' basticles!"

That reminds me of the character in Father Ted who callls Ted a "grasshole".

[torinfan]

Maybe it doesn't answer the first post, but it apparently is the first time damn is spoken in a movie. If bloody was used prior to 1937, I don't know (never knew bloody was a swear word).

I must have been very young when I first learned that 'bloody' was a cuss word in British English (apparently something gets lost in the translation on this side of the pond).

But I also know a bunch of cuss words in Farsi that mean next to nothing in English

[Arthur Linden-Jones]

I must have been very young when I first learned that 'bloody' was a cuss word in British English (apparently something gets lost in the translation on this side of the pond).

Bit off topic, but I remember in the late 50s, there were 2 versions of Johnny Horton's "Battle of New Orleans" released in Australia. The first version included the lyrics "and we caught the bloody British in the town of New Orleans". That was short lived - the next version omitted the word "bloody" because the BBC had banned the version which contained reference to the "bloody British". This quickly became the Australian version played on all radio stations.

[Dandy Forsdyke]

Also, didn't Audrey Hepburn say "Come On Move Your Bleedin Arse" at the races in "My Fair Lady"?

I think that was the Rita Webb version from 1974.

[narabdela]

One of the most offensive terms for female genitalia, the c-word, is the ultimate four-letter word in British English, the final media taboo. The first use of the word in a UK TV drama was in Mosley, a drama about the rise and fall of the British Fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley. This was first shown on Channel 4 in the late 1990s.

I didn't think this was correct, as I seem to remember Maurice Roeves using it in a drama well before the late 1990s

However it seems that the first scripted use was in "No Mama, No", an ITV drama broadcast in 1979, according to both Wiki and IMDB.