The politically correct US Supreme Court and the Motherfucking Texas Court of Criminal Appeals: using legal databases to trace the origins of words

Verbatim, Autumn, 2002 by Fred R. Shapiro

   One question led to the declaration that he
   [deceased] called Mr. Herd, there on the
   ground at the time, a 'damn dirty son of a bitch'
   and a 'cock-sucking son of a bitch.' I warned
   him of the nature of the language, and he
   [Farabee, deceased] said it was the truth. (The
   brackets appear in the original.)

My focus here has been on the use of legal full-text databases to trace the origins of words and phrases. There are many other databases of historical texts on the World Wide Web of enormous linguistic value, including Accessible Archives, HarpWeek, JSTOR, Library of Congress American Memory, Literature Online, Making of America, ProQuest Historical Newspapers, Questia, and University of Virginia Electronic Text Center. These cover materials such as newspapers, magazines, scholarly journals, books, literary works, and congressional documents.

[Fred Shapiro is the associate librarian for Public Services, a lecturer in Legal Research, Yale Law School, and editor, Yale Dictionary of Quotations.]

Fred R. Shapiro

New Haven, Connecticut