Link to NY City Council "Bitch & Ho" Resolution

[Barnhart]

An ugly-looking woman is a dog, sometimes.

David

barnhart at highlands.com

American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> writes:
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>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       "Landau, James" <James.Landau at NGC.COM>
>Subject:      Re: Link to NY City Council "Bitch & Ho" Resolution
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>Try again.  Hopefully this time my message will be readable:
>
>Someone I can't identify posed this question:
>
>> Just wondering: What is it about a female dog that has made the
>> word "bitch" so offensive? I sense a great injustice here.
>
>According to an otherwise long-forgotten book I once read, in a number
>of cultures including many in Continental Europe, dogs are despised
>because they eat corpses on a battlefield. However in the Anglo-Saxon
>culture the dog is looked on favorably, e.g. "Man's best friend". Hence
>English speakers were unable to use "dog" as a curse-word and therefore
>settled on "bitch".
>
>I will leave it to the judgment of the ADS List whether the above is
>plausible.
>
>The Jewish Encyclopedia (article on "Dog", on-line at
>http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=415&letter=D) has the
>following, which may be relevant here:
>
>The dog referred to in the Bible is the semisavage species seen
>throughout the East, held in contempt for its fierce, unsympathetic
>habits, and not yet recognized for his nobler qualities as the faithful
>companion of man. He is used chiefly by shepherds or farmers to watch
>their sheep or their houses and tents, and to warn them by his loud
>barking of any possible danger (Job xxx. 1; Isa. lvi. 10). He lives in
>the streets, where he acts as scavenger, feeding on animal flesh unfit
>for man, and often devouring even human bodies (Ex. xxii. 31; I Kings
>xiv. 11, xvi. 4, xxi. 23; II Kings ix. 10, 36; Jer. xv. 3). At night he
>wanders in troops from place to place, filling the air with the noise of
>his barking (Ps. lix. 7-14; compare Ex. xi. 7), and it is dangerous to
>seize him by the car in order to stop him (Prov. xxvi. 17). He is of a
>fierce disposition (Isa. lvi. 11; A. V. "greedy")and therefore the type
>of violent men (Ps. xxii. 17 [A. V. 16], 21 [20]). Treacherous and
>filthy (Prov. xxvi. 11), his name is used as a term of reproach and
>self-humiliation in such expressions as: "What is thy servant, which is
>but a dog" (II Kings viii. 13, R. V.); or "Am I a dog's head?" (II Sam.
>iii. 8); or "After whom dost thou pursue? after a dead dog?" (I Sam.
>xxiv. 15 [A. V. 14]; compare II Sam. ix. 8, xvi. 9; Cheyne's emendation
>in "Encyc. Bibl." s.v. "Dog," seems unnecessary).
>
>The dog known to the Hebrews in Biblical times was the so-called pariah
>dog, the shepherd-dog (Job xxx. 7) being the more ferocious species. The
>Assyrian hunter's dog was probably unknown. The A. V. translation of
>____ ("well girt in the loins") in Prov. xxx. 31 by "greyhound" is
>incorrect; R. V. (margin) has more correctly "war-horse" (see
>commentaries ad loc.).
>
>The dog being an unclean animal, "the breaking of a dog's neck,"
>mentioned as a sacrificial rite in Isa. lxvi. 3 (compare Ex. xiii. 13),
>indicates an ancient Canaanite practise (see W. R. Smith, "Rel. of Sem."
>p. 273). The shamelessness of the dog in regard to sexual life gave rise
>to the name ___("dog") for the class of priests in the service of
>Astarte who practised sodomy ("kedeshim," called also by the Greeks ___,
>Deut. xxiii. 19 [A. V. 18]; compare ib. 18 [17] and Rev. xxii. 15; see
>Driver ad loc.), though ___as the regular name of priests attached to
>the temple of Ashtoret at Larnaca has been found on the monuments (see
>"C. I. S." i., No. 86).
>
>     ["___" for Hebrew and Greek in the original]
>
>OT: I agre with Wilson Gray on "Pepsi-Cola".  I was under the impression
>it got its name because it was originally marketed as a stomach remedy.
>By this derivation "Pepsi-Cola" is an interesting blend of Greek
>"pepsis:" <- "pessein" and Malinke "kolo"
>
>James A. Landau
>test engineer
>Northrop-Grumman Information Technology
>8025 Black Horse Pike, Suite 300
>West Atlantic City NJ 08232 USA
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