cubic gallons

[Wilson Gray]

I've never come across "buttload" before, though I'm familiar with
"shitload." Recently, my fifteen-year-old niece informed that a very
close friend is no longer an "asshole buddy," but rather a "butt
buddy."

Did these latter have a gay reference at one time, perhaps? A certain
example that I know of is "hardleg," originally referring to male
trannies because of the unladylike musculature of their legs.
Nowadays, it's just another way of saying "guy, fellow," etc.

-Wilson

On 9/27/05, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at rci.rutgers.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: cubic gallons
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 16:22:48 -0400, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>
> >On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 15:34:25 -0400, Michael McKernan wrote:
> >
> >>A 'metric gallon' consisting of four liters (to approximate the English
> >>gallon), would be a departure from the basic ideology of the metric
> >>system, which AFAIK, is firmly committed to the 'decimal' system.  Thus,
> >>it already has a volume measure, the 'deciliter', (1/10 of a liter).
> >>Apparently not in common use, the next-larger-than-liter metric unit
> >>would be a'dekaliter' (or'decaliter'?), equal to 10 liters.
> >
> >Yeah, but there's already been a nondecimal precedent established by the
> >"metric mile" (= 1500 meters, or would that be a sesquikilometer?).
>
> Forgot about another noncanonical metric measurement that one sees from
> time to time: a "metric buttload". I see Grant Barrett is already on the
> case: <http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/metric_butt_load/>
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>


--
-Wilson Gray