"bulldyke" shortened from "bulldog-like"?

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:49 AM -0500 8/10/02, Gerald Cohen wrote:
>   There's been some speculation on this list about the origin of "bulldyke"
>(= lesbian, esp. a masculine, aggressive one).  FWIW, here's another
>possibility.
>
>    I checked Ewart James' _Contemporary British Slang_ (Chicago: NTC), 1999,
>for "bulldyke." It's not listed, but I did find the following item:
>
>"THE BULLDOG BREED = the British, as seen by the British.
>[examples]:(1)  'I don't think the Bulldog Breed is quite so
>bulldog-like any more.' (2) 'Of course we're the Bulldog Breed, as
>tough and determined and resilient as ever.'"
>
>   In these examples, "bulldog-like" and "tough and determined" caught
>my attention. So how about:"bulldike" arose by shortening from
>"bulldog-like" to indicate a tough/determined/masculine/aggressive
>lesbian? Then with varying spellings and other alterations:
>"bulldyke, bulldyker, bulldagger, bulldicker, dyke, bull."
>
>    Again I must emphasize that this is only speculative.
>
This strikes me as dubious, especially without further documentation,
although no more so than other derivations that have appeared in
print, notably Judy Grahn's attempt to derive "bulldyke" from Queen
Boadicea, in her _Gay Words, Gay Worlds_, and also here on the web:
==================
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/grahn/intexcerpts.htm

I don't know of an uglier word I've ever been called in my life than
'bulldyke.'  I was so
haunted by this for many years that I finally decided to take the
word by the horns and find out why this strange word is in the
vernacular. I've traced it to a Celtic queen who fought
against the Romans in A.D. 61 during the reign of Nero and nearly
won. The Celts had institutional gay practices, which the Roman
authors were horrified by. This queen led a nation
which still had gay traditions going on. She had flaming red hair and
was a very large woman. The Celtic women warriors were older women
who often taught the men arms. It was a
totally different sense of fighting than we have any conception of.
And when she rebelled against the Roman colonists and nearly won,
they suppressed her name. Her name was
Boadicea, a word which has come down to us meaning a very
militaristic or strong, warrior-like, lesbian-type large female.
That's a part of what I'm working on, combining poetry and
etymology and my own experiences. There are many other examples
besides that one. That's the one that really thrilled me to death
when it finally came together.
=================
I'm afraid that "no more dubious than Judy Grahn" is not a
particularly strong recommendation in the etymology biz.  Not that I
have a competing hypothesis of my own, of course.

larry