[dropcap]I[/dropcap]was wrestling with myself on Monday, over whether the editors of our more respected dictionaries would draw the line at “shithole”—recently awarded new status by none other than the world’s most famous self-confessed serial pussy grabber and President of the United States—when I decided to investigate how many other words once never spoken in polite company had made it into the universally regarded Oxford English Dictionary.
I also thought about the over-steamed two southern gents who, reportedly, were recently arrested for throwing around obscene words in a public place. The incident had lured out of his lair an appalled, recently reclusive Kenny Anthony. On the occasion he demonstrated unusual respect and appreciation for the Saint Lucia Constitution that affords us the freedom to fire f-bombs and other mother-related expletives, curses and threats at Allen Chastanet. So offended had been his delicate sensibilities by the reported reaction of the Vieux Fort police that the former prime minister let it be known he was ready to put other people’s money where his mouth is. He appealed to right-thinking Vieux Fortians to set up a defense fund in the names of his potty-mouthed constituents.
It occurred to me that rather than digging into the empty pockets of his acknowledged grossly under-employed constituents, Kenny Anthony might’ve placed his talents at the disposal of the two accused. He does, after all, enjoy something of a reputation as the nation’s foremost non-practicing constitutional lawyer. He might also have relied on the all-seasons availability of Dominica’s most discussed Senior Counsel. Conceivably, the two Anthonys, singly or together, are capable of making mince meat of any charges laid by the Vieux Fort constabulary.
But back to “shithole.” It turns out that “2017’s word of the year” had long before Donald Trump occupied the White House found its way into the OED. Consider these definitions: “A very dirty place.” And this: “An extremely dirty, shabby, or otherwise unpleasant place.” Curiously, while the word itself is not normally synonymous with racism Trump managed to make it so by his connecting it with an open invitation to the people of Norway to come to America.
A possible balm for those particularly discombobulated by the U.S. President’s reference to Haitians and Africans: “The very first known use of ‘shithole’ in English print literature [according to a feature in a recent issue of Atlantic] appears in a remarkable manuscript held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The manuscript, titled Liber Lilliati, contains the bawdy verse writing by the cathedral musician John Lilliat some time before his death in 1629. The verse is worth reading in full, which we can do thanks to an annotated edition of Liber Lilliati, published by the University of Delaware Press 1895: Ten tuff Turds did I toss in thi teeth that troinst from
my tuch hole/Nine nickinge nockes did I nick on thi nose that I neiside from my narshole/Fiue flushing farts
did I flap in thi face that I flunge from my fisthole/Six shitten shotes did I shoot in thy mowth that I shot from my shithole.”
The Atlantic article also reveals that “when the news of Trump’s comment broke, some scholarly types consulted the Oxford English Dictionary to learn more about the word’s history. There they found Lilliat’s verse as the first citation, in the earliest meaning of ‘shithole,’ defined as the rectum or anus.”
Rebecca L. Fall, a Mellon/ACLS Public Fellow and a strategic communications manager at The Public Theater, “even supplied a photo of the actual manuscript page with the Ten Tuff Turds verse. Who knew etymology would be so cathartic today?”
The same source advises that in 1971, Bernard Malamud made use of the word in his novel The Tenants: “A character named Willie Spearmint says, ‘I have never been in Mississippi and would not put my foot in that shithole.’ ’’ So now, dear reader, I need ask: What is it about Donald Trump’s characteristic descriptive that so offends our sensibilities—to the point that as I write our Haitian brothers in the U.S. are busy burning and looting in protest? I cannot recall similar anti-social reactions to references to our region and distant others as “failed states.” Does that mean we’re down with the references? How about “basket-case?” And “Third World country?” And since evidently we are bothered only by “shithole,” may I ask what precisely makes the particular pejorative so egregious? That scatological association? I might add that I’ve never quite understood what makes “nigger” especially offensive to people of color but not its whitewashed version, “the N-Word!” How can that be other than “perfuming poo?”
Another inconvenient truth: For over sixty years we have casually been dumping into our waters gallons upon gallons of untreated human waste, drinking water from our rivers and swimming in our blue sea at our own risk. Lord alone knows how many tons of coral we’ve destroyed, one way or another. For countless years we’ve tolerated a broken justice system that itself represents criminality of the worst kind. Repetition has rendered us comfortable with mothers eight and ten years old; unresolved homicides by the score; arrogant and corrupt politicians; rampant sexual abuse, often involving school kids, and naked official nepotism.
Before our Christian eyes places of worship have been turned by their cassocked operators into houses of ill repute. There are many names by which to define what we have permitted our country to become, none easy on the ear. On the other hand, I am at a loss what word might best describe a people happy to wallow in poo as long as nobody says the emperor’s naked. That such as Trump and his predecessors may have dumped the first several million metaphoric gallons of waste over us can never justify our own continuing contributions to the mess we now swim in. For too long have we concentrated on singers. It is about time we turned our attention to their song.
Deny it if you must, I know that even as I write my admittedly hard to swallow truths; even as more inconsequential epithets are hurled at my name; most of us would readily desert the land that gave us birth for a chance to live illegally in some godforsaken American shithole!
