Popular culture is popular for only a while. Then new generations come along and have their own ways of doing things. They don’t know about things that were commonplace at one time. I’ve had to explain to younger people who Al Jolson was (and he was before my time), and not only how a rotary dial phone works, but why phone numbers had letters and numbers.
So it is with many old terms and sayings, too. People today may never have heard of them, though they were known 100 years ago. To your right is a frame from a Buck Rogers comic strip. Even though Buck is in the future, he uses an obsolete “oath” as they called it then. I’ve heard “You dirty dog!” before. No one says it today; people are less genteel and think nothing of using foul language our forefathers wouldn’t have dreamed of. But “The dirty pup!” is an old one that’s a new one on me.
It was common. Here it is in a Salt Lake City newspaper, 1908.
Portland, Oregon paper, 1916.
1915. Los Angeles Times.
This is from 1910.
St. Paul, Minnesota, 1892.
Here’s Bosko in Bosko’s Picture Show (1933).
Yeah, it’s possible he didn’t say “The dirty pup!” at the “cur” on the screen. But, to me, it’s more likely he did than fanciful tales of shouting a four-letter word that is far too common today but never used in polite society in an earlier day. Regardless, some people will believe it anyway because “slipping something past a censor” makes a much better story. Today, it seems, there are those who are quite prepared to accept and cling to fanciful tales as fact and reject everything else.
I tell folks I'm 39, like Jack Benny. Then I gotta explain Jack Benny to 'em.
ReplyDeleteIn any event, "You dirty pup!" is new to me. I always heard it as "You dirty dog!"
I believe you may have cracked this case wide open.
ReplyDeleteBosko says "The Dirty MUG!" in Bosko's Picture Show. I think the whole world's been conditioned to hear the F word by porn. They didn't use that word in the 1930s mainstream media.
ReplyDeleteI first saw the reference back in 1984 in Will Friedwald's & Jerry Beck's historic 1981 Scarecrow Press book "THE WARNER BROS.CARTOONS" (for which I added much info and deleted such as, "Directed by Bugs Bunny" for 1948's "MY BUNNY LIES OVER THE OCEAN" and "Mel Blanc is credited as Narrator"(?????) f0r 1953's "FLOP "or"PLOP GOES THYE WEASEL"). That's where I saw in reference to this one, the f word. But the teams later 1989 revised book as "LOONEY TUNES & MERRIE MELOPDIES" does correct iot with some other word.."f but rhyming with "pug" or "rug"..cheers!
DeleteI never heard of "You Dirty Pup" before even though I read most of that old, gigantic Buck Rogers book published around 1969. I agree that this would explain what certainly sounded like the four-letter word to me in the Bosko cartoon. I'll go with this explanation as I don't hear "mug" at all when listening carefully to the soundtrack.
ReplyDeleteWell, some people have already made up their minds that it's a swear word or whatever. I don't expect them to change. To me, people who think it's the f-bomb are listening through 21st Century ears, not taking the times into consideration.
DeleteI did the same exercise with "dirty mug" I did with "dirty pup." I searched newspapers.com from 1933 and earlier. I stopped at the first 50 stories. "Dirty mug" either referred to something to drink from or a face. Nothing else.
The earliest I found it as an epithet was in Australia in the late '40s. In one newspaper story. One.
"Dirty pup," on the other hand, came up as an insult in nine of the first ten newspaper stories I checked out, and plenty of others. It was certainly used that way at the time this cartoon was made.
Honestly, "dirty pup" is the only thing that makes sense to me. The currently popular 4-letter word would never have been uttered in a general release until much later in the 20th century. So yes, I'm going with your version.
DeleteI feel like I’m crazy because it’s clear as day to me that he’s saying “That dirty cur!” It even says on the card right before “‘Dirty Dalton’ (The Cur!)”
ReplyDeleteAfter listening on headphones, I have to agree. The 'c' sound is extremely distinct; equally distinct is the lack of any plosive or fricative final consonant. Indeed, the final phoneme sounds distinctly rhotic.
DeleteIt has to be "cur".
I hear "cur", too! Are most people not considering that because it's too obvious, or does it really not sound like a hard C to them?
ReplyDelete