Link to NY City Council "Bitch & Ho" Resolution

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

    Just wondering: What is it about a female dog that has made the word "bitch" so offensive?  I sense a great injustice here.  Dogs (both male and female), albeit with some exceptions, are wonderful animals.
 
Gerald Cohen
 
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From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Benjamin Zimmer
Sent: Tue 8/7/2007 3:34 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Link to NY City Council "Bitch & Ho" Resolution

On 8/7/07, Charles Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
<snip> 

The squabble continues for most
> of a page, with the term "She-Dog" occurring in profusion.

Which fits with what the Grose entry has...

BITCH. A she dog, or doggess; the most offensive appellation
  that can be given to an English woman, even more
  provoking than that of whore, as may he gathered from the
  regular Billinsgate or St. Giles's answer--"I may be a
  whore, but can't be a bitch."


--Ben Zimmer

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