"the brunt of so many jokes"

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Feb 22, 2007, at 5:49 AM, Charlie Doyle wrote:

> John's use of "brunt" ["the brunt of so many jokes"] for the
> traditional "butt" is fairly common, I believe.

i get 16,200 webhits for "be the brunt", almost all of them in this
sense.  plus 37,700 for "is the brunt" and 12,500 for "was the
brunt".  mostly with "of ... joke(s)".

>   But it isn't in OED (or at least I couldn't find it there).

i looked at four other dictionaries and didn't find it.  even the
Urban Dictionary doesn't have this sense.

> Was it originally a euphemism--conscious or not?

possible.  more likely, possible influence from "bear the brunt",
which seems to be far and away the most common use of "brunt".  so,
as jerry cohen just suggested, possibly a syntactic blend of "be the
butt of" and "bear the brunt of", facilitated by the phonological
similarity of "butt" and "brunt".

meanwhile, "brunt of" occurs in the same more general 'object of'
senses as "butt of":

My father became a monster and I was the brunt of his furious rage.
Instead of the "gentle" abuse that I received, he began to rape me,
beat me and shatter ...
www.angelfire.com/ny5/brokenmirrors_abuse/

Just as importantly, Cleveland was the brunt of one of the most
famous scandals of American political history. During his first
Presidential campaign, ...
writ.news.findlaw.com/books/reviews/20021101_russello.html

arnold

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