He was a veryfree-spoken man (the gentry of those days were much prouder than at present), and used to say to me in his haughty easy way, "Hang it, Mr. Barry, you have no more manners than a barber."
1915,Joseph Conrad, chapter 8, inVictory: An Island Tale:
You can imagine what fairlyfree-spoken girls will ask when they come to the point of not caring what they say.
Look at 21st-century Britons, tongue-tied in conversation, groping for some PC euphemism (“If I’m allowed to say that…”) in what was once the most iconicallyfree-spoken country on earth.
