whence BUCK NAKED?

[James Smith]

Seems to me that "buck naked" could be from the
seemingly, to the eyes of Eurocentric settlers,
unclothed state of male Indians.  (And in 1928 there
were still lots of "old timers" around to pass this
use on.)

--- RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
> However, in 1928 BUTT was not a nice word to use in
> conjunction with NAKED,
> whereas BUCK was. Perhaps BUCK is to BUTT as GOSH is
> to GOD? That is to say,
> BUTT NAKED could be old as the hills (no pun
> intended) with BUCK being what
> polite people came to say and write.
>
> M-W's predating must predate such archival resources
> as Newspaperarchive. I
> guess that would be the place to look for raw (pun
> intended) data.
>
> In a message dated 4/5/04 5:46:49 PM,
> JMB at STRADLEY.COM writes:
>
>
> >         If the "butt naked" theory were true, then
> presumably "butt naked"
> > would predate "buck naked."  Instead, "butt naked"
> seems to be relatively
> > recent (Google Groups has 2/23/90), while
> Merriam-Webster takes "buck naked"
> > back to 1928.
> >
> > John Baker
> >



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