Those words were a red rag to Manningham-Buller and the “grey elderly ones” (as Lawrence had described his censors), a breach of the etiquette and decorum relied on to cover up unpleasant truths. In 1960, in the interests of keeping wives dutiful and servants touching their forelocks, Lady Constance Chatterley’s affair with a gamekeeper was unmentionable. The prosecutors were complacent: they would have the judge on their side, and a jury comprised of people of property, predominantly male, middle aged, middle minded and middle class. And they had four-letter words galore: the prosecuting counsel’s first request was that a clerk in the DPP’s office should count them carefully. In his opening speech to the jury, he played them as if they were trump cards: “The word ‘fuck’ or ‘fucking’ appears no less than 30 times . . . ‘Cunt’ 14 times; ‘balls’ 13 times; ‘shit’ and ‘arse’ six times apiece; ‘cock’ four times; ‘piss’ three times, and so on.”
- The trial of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Guardian.co.uk, October 22, 2010.
About the author:
Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.
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