To make a not necessarily helpful generalization here: the English are
sex maniacs, whereas the Germans have an anal fixation.  In other words:
German humour and coarse language seem to me to tend more towards the
scatological, whereas English smut focuses on sex.  The aristocratic
connexion doesn't make a lot of sense to me - the upper classes may have
been sexually more unbuttoned than the middle classes in the 18th century,
but I doubt that their more refined (at that time, French) manners would
have allowed for this sort of crude Teutonic scatology.  But it should also
be noted that in Germany, language and manners aren't nearly as reliable
class indicators as in Anglo-Saxon countries.  According to Wolfgang
Hildesheimer it was Mozart's mother who passed on this tendency towards
scatological humour to her son but she herself came from a not-too-shabby
middle-class background.

Make of the above muddle what you will ...

Felix Delbruck
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