Owen Wister and @#$%&! language

Montana cowboys, c1910

While reading Owen Wister's early western fiction, it occurs to me that a few words could be said here about language. Like many western writers, Wister reminds us that where men are unconstrained by the manners of polite company, they will swear. His stories make constant reference to that custom.

Given the standards of publishing at the time, however, this could only be done indirectly. So we get non-explicit indications of rough talk in an almost infinite variety. Here is an even dozen of them from Wister's Red Men and White (1896):

Cumnor swore some resigned, unemphatic oaths, fondly supposing that “shortly” meant some time or other; but hearing in the next five minutes the definite fact that F troop would get up at two, he made use of profound and thorough language, and compared the soldier with the slave. (p. 95)

The captain carried a letter in his hand, and the orderly, though distant a respectful ten paces, could hear him swearing plain as day. (p. 144) 

1st Cavalry, Fort Hood, Texas

He unwrapped a clean, many-crumpled handkerchief, and held Lolita’s photograph for a while. Then he burst into an unhappy oath, and folded the picture up again. (p. 194) 

Swearing capably, the Major now accounted clearly to us for the whole occurrence, striding up and down, while we lifted the hurt men into the ranch wagon and arranged for their care at Cedar Springs. (p. 249)

Uttering a single disconcerted syllable of rage, he wheeled and went by himself into the barracks, and lay down solitary on his bunk and read a newspaper until mess-call without taking in a word of it. (p. 90)

Of Luis’s chatter he said his whole opinion in one word, a single English syllable, which he uttered quietly for his own benefit. (p. 178) 

Texas Rangers, 1890

He went about town with some cattlemen—carousing bankrupts, who remembered their ruin in the middle of whiskey, and broke off to curse it and the times and climate, and their starved herds that none would buy at any price. (p. 195)

He, not so easily, and with small blunderings that he cursed, attended to his horse and mules, coming in at length to sit against the wall where she was cooking. (p. 181)

The men were talking and cursing, all but Drylyn there among them, serious and strange-looking. (p. 118)

The colonel’s face was red, and he swore in his quiet voice; but the lips of the lieutenants by the open locker quivered fitfully in the silence. (p. 242)

This took the boy unguarded, and he swore with surprise. Then his face grew somber. (p. 268)

He fastened his eyes on the thicket, and his lips grew bloodless. The running river sounded more plainly. “—  — it!” cried the man, desperately, “let’s start the fun, then.” (p. 110)

Colorado cowboys, 1924

The blankety-blank of the last example is the  rule for some early western writers, which is unfortunate. There’s a kind of entertainment to be had in the hands of a clever writer who could verbalize a variety of inventive dodges without seeming to do so.

The modern writer, of course, is free to fill in those blanks. Ironically, avoiding explicit language in a fictional world where folks would normally use it often seems as awkward today as its opposite a century ago.

Photo credits: Wikimedia Commons

Coming up: Yellowstone Kelly (1959)