Yet More Bad Girl Talk

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Sat Aug 14 12:11:05 UTC 2010


A few questions:

At 8/13/2010 11:58 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>The Oxygen cable network ("for women") is back with another bunch o' bad
>girls in _The Bad Girls Club_.  Some linguistically noteworthy sayings from
>the unruly female 21-26-year-old cohort:
>
>...
>"If Iike you, I'll snatch the bitch for you. If I don't like you, you get
>snatched by the bitch."  [Meaning unclear but ominous.]

Could this possibly be descended from the OED2's
snatch (v). ":6. a. To remove suddenly from this
world or life. Used in passive and freq. with
away and from."?  (Here used in the active and without "away" or "from".)
      1597 HOOKER Eccl. Pol. V. xlvi. §1 Rather
to bee taken then snatched away from the face of
the earth. 1601 SHAKES. All's Well V. iii. 154, I
am a-feard the life of Hellen (Ladie) Was fowly
snatcht. ... 1888 BURGON Lives 12 Good Men I.
Pref. p. xiv, He was snatched away while
affording..fresh promise of a truly brilliant Professorial career.

Or, assuming the "bitch" here is female (as it is
not in the "motherf*****g bitch" quotation),
perhaps arising somehow from snatch (n), "14.
dial. and slang. The female pudenda."?  What were
the genders of the speaker, "you", and "the bitch"?


>...
>
>"[She's a] slutbag."  [I.e., despicable.]

Jon, did you intend to suggest that these
expressions were recent?  Thinking that I'd heard
or seen "slutbag" some time ago (unless it's so
attractive that I invented a memory of it!), I
checked Google Books, and see a 1988 snippet from
_Little Red Rooster_, by Greg Matthews:  ". . .
lying bitch of a two-faced slut bag shit-faced ..."

Joel

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