"bulldyke" shortened from "bulldog-like"?

[Douglas G. Wilson]

> >  (2) "bulldyker" from "Boadicea"/"Boudicca" as above;
>
>Doubtful.  Can you suggest any other slang term which is based on a Classical
>name which has worked its way UP from argot or cant instead of starting in
>the educated classes and working its way DOWN into being a slang term?

I do not suggest any such ascent. I take this word to be
fairly-low-register slang throughout its history. If this Boadicea story is
true, I imagine somebody first saying something like "Look at this article
about ... hmm ... Bo-dye-ca, I suppose ... what a tough one! Kicked the
Romans' arses! That big barmaid over at the Prad and Kipper looks like that
type, shoulders like a man, you should have seen her throw old Bob out of
there last week, and they say she's, well, you know, like a man in other
ways too ...." The first use would not necessarily occur in a "low-class"
environment; it would require just one slightly or moderately literate
non-scholar of whatever class to read the name a little wrong out of a
newspaper or off a sign or whatever. It would be entirely natural for this
to be understood as "bulldyker" in speech, and this form might then be
reinforced or stabilized by considerations such as James Landau presents
later (resemblance to "dick", "bulldozer", etc.). But I think if the word
started out "dicker" it would have stayed "dicker", for example. Of course
this is all speculation.

>OED has "dike,dyke" to dress up (perhaps a variation of "to deck up" from
>1851.  A woman who decided to dress up as a man (in pre-World War I days,
>when that simply wasn't done) might as well dress up in men's high-fashion
>rather than as a working man, and hence might be said to be "dyked up",
>leading to "bull-dyked" where "bull" means "masculine, macho".

Yes, but I'd like to see a parallel usage, say a man OR woman "diked up as
an Indian chief" on stage, or "diked out as a maharajah" at a costume
party, or whatever. Anyway, this possibility I do consider at least
borderline plausible as I said, but inferior in that it requires this
assumption about use of "dike" and "bull". If this possibility is correct,
none of the male-sex-organ stuff is needed at all IMHO. I speculate that
this "dike" is a back-formation from the past participle "dight" sounding
like "diked" in one Scots version "dicht" /daixt/ or so, I suppose cognate
with "deck" although I haven't investigated this really. This "dike"
apparently was more or less a regionalism, considered Southern and/or
Appalachian, and given as an example of "backwoods" or "isolated hill
country" speech in one 19th-century article which I reviewed.

>Then there is "dick" meaning "penis", a usage for which the OED gives an 1891
>date.    Bulls (male cows) have prominent penes, giving a possible (and
>definitely unattested) "bull-dicker", "someone (perhaps Lesbian) who displays
>a (usually metaphorical) penis prominently and uncouthly", similar to "prick"
>meaning "an overbearing man".
>
>Hence, a woman playing the male role in an act of Lesbian intercourse might
>be a "dicker", and if particularly agressive, "a bull dicker"
>
>There are two separate expressions involving "bull" that mean "stubborn" and
>sometimes "juggernaut".  They are "bulldog" and "bulldozer".  When used
>metaphorically, the main difference is that a bulldog holds a position,
>whereas a bulldozer advances like a juggernaut.
>
>Putting all this together, I can easily imagine someone coming up with a
>metaphorical "bull diker" meaning a 1) Lesbian who 2) dressed up in male
>finery and 3) was notably stubborn and aggressive in behavior.

This would be a deliberate "fanciful coinage" presumably, although perhaps
suggested by such considerations. Of course this possibility is always
present. "Natural" coalescence or convergence might occur, with -- just as
one casual imaginary example -- "cross-diker" meaning "transvestite" plus
"bulldozer" meaning "virago" being blended, but where are these ancestral
terms in these senses?

Of course plausibility is in the eye of the beholder. In this case I find a
very few etymologies plausible, many others (such as one from "Van Dyke at
Bull Run") not plausible. The "null hypothesis" that somebody just made the
word up out of thin air (actually presumably because it sounded like some
other relevant words) is certainly a possibility too. And then of course
there are the possibilities which haven't been thought of.

-- Doug Wilson