1947 citing in Archie Comic of "butthole." What did it mean?

[Amy West]

On 5/13/12 12:00 AM, Automatic digest processor wrote:
> It's the only time the strip uses the word "butthole." There's one other
> use of "prime," weeks later, in the sense of "enjoyable; splendid."
> "Bug-house" appears once but clearly hyphenated.
>
> Montana (who, judging from a photo on p. 295, strongly resembled Jughead)
> uses a fair amount of slang, most of it either familiar late '40s stuff
> (e.g., "cut a rug," "clip joint," "keen," "jaloppy," "square," "hep,"
> etc.).  I see no evidence anywhere among the strips of the kind of
> super-subtle punning that would be suggested by a contrast between "prime"
> and "offal."
>
> Montana uses a number of expressions that strike me as ad-hoc and for the
> nonce. Certainly I've never seen them before and they have a factitious
> sound. Examples: "crack knees" (dance), "drip-lip" (a 'drip'), "tight as a
> sailor's britches," "hop the hickories" (go skiing), "feeble greeble"
> (weakling), "flick a lid" (take a look), "gush-slush" (romantic lyrics),
> etc.
So are you arguing/concluding that "butthole" in "butthole job" is not
only a hapax legomenon but also a nonce use/word?

---Amy West

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org