Abstract
Given today's general bias towards euphemisms (cf. Arif, 2015), the topic of this paper may seem embarrassing and ill-chosen. However, it makes sense to find out to what extent the spoken language of dialects in former centuries correlated with one of the dark sides of everyday reality. In Britain up to the second half of the 19thcentury, traditional dialect was the common linguistic medium of the large majority of people (the lower and middle classes), just before the norm of ‘King's English’ and, in linguistics, ofsystème, started playing a dominant role. We may assume that the English dialects of the Late Modern English (LModE) period (1700–1900) were a correlative of people's everyday life.
Highlights
Given today’s general bias towards euphemisms, the topic of this paper may seem embarrassing and ill-chosen
This paper focuses on the linguistic expression of ‘dirt’, here provisionally used as a cover term and in the literal, that is physical sense of the word
As the best and most comprehensive dialect dictionary ever, Wright’s EDD provides access to written texts as linguistic evidence for the Late Modern English (LModE) period, and to the spoken language, including the blacklisted parts of it, from words labelled informal or vulgar to slang
Summary
Given today’s general bias towards euphemisms (cf. Arif, 2015), the topic of this paper may seem embarrassing and ill-chosen. As the best and most comprehensive dialect dictionary ever, Wright’s EDD provides access to written texts as linguistic evidence for the LModE period (the method suggested by Hickey, 2010), and to the spoken language, including the blacklisted parts of it, from words labelled informal or vulgar to slang.. Up to the middle of the 19th century, before the general installation of WCs and the building of sewer networks, the conditions of personal hygiene were literally breathtaking, in the cities of the United Kingdom. Such were the collateral damages of industrialisation. The present paper suggests taking the historical circumstances sketched above for granted, focusing on the geographical distribution and other characteristics of dialect lexis concerning ‘dirt’ as represented by the EDD
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
