"the brunt of so many jokes"

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

     This looks to me like a sort of syntactic blend, aided by the similarity of  "butt" and "brunt". From: "be the butt of..." + "bear the brunt of..."  I don't think euphemism plays a role here, since "be the butt of a joke" seems perfectly acceptable socially.
 
Gerald Cohen
 
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From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Charles Doyle
Sent: Thu 2/22/2007 7:49 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: "the brunt of so many jokes"

John's use of "brunt" for the traditional "butt" is fairly common, I believe.  But it isn't in OED (or at least I couldn't find it there). Was it originally a euphemism--conscious or not?

--Charlie
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---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 17:49:20 -0500
>From: "Baker, John" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM>
>Subject: Re: Help Needed Please
>
>        I question the premises of your project.  First, it's far from clear to me, as a lawyer, that I have an elevated status in society. The case could as well be made that lawyers as a group are particularly disdained.  I certainly don't know of any other profession that is the brunt of so many jokes . . . .

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