bugger

[Beverly Flanigan]

Andrea Vine wrote:

>>I always assumed this was Anglo snobbery, just as posh invitations will use
>>"colour" and "harbour", and even a character on 'Ally McBeal' last night
cursed
>>with the word "bugger".
>>
Cursed with the word "bugger"--is that a Britishism?  Was it a noun or a
verb?  My dad (b. 1900, Minnesota) always used "bugger" (n.) to refer to a
somehow-despised person; the first vowel was a wedge (upside down V).  A
student of mine from Wisconsin, on the other hand, named his dog "Bugger,"
pronounced with /U/.  For my dad, the word was a derogation; for my student
it clearly was not.  I'm aware that the word could also be a verb--but is
it British only?  (I don't use it in verb contexts....)