1947 citing in Archie Comic of "butthole." What did it mean?

[Garson O'Toole]

A commenter at Boing Boing named Robert Baruch noted that there are
citations in Google Books that associate a "butt hole" with a cul de
sac. (See below.) Archie's phrase "Oh, it gets kinda butthole at
times" may be referring to some metaphorical sense of a cul de sac.
Perhaps Archie feels confined, trapped, bored, and/or optionless. A
cul de sac is a dead end, so one might say it is a dead-end job, but
that meaning doesn't quite match the meaning suggested by the comic
strip.

Cite: 1912 November 16, The Living Age, Different Dog Days by Horace
Hutchinson, Start Page 444, Quote Page 445, The Living Age Company,
Boston. (Google Books full view)
http://books.google.com/books?id=oDdrJisSXdEC&q=butt-hole#v=snippet&

[Begin excerpt]
But our idea of a badger hunt was to send a dog up to the badger
underground, to keep the brock occupied in a "butt-hole" - that is to
say, a cul de sac in the ramifications of the great bury - while we
digged across that particular tunnel and so cut him off from access to
his many galleries and mansions; after which we could dig straight up
to him at leisure.
[End excerpt]


Cite: 1898 May 28, Country Life Illustrated, Badger-Hunting, Start
Page 669, Quote Page 670, Hudson & Kearns, London. (Google Books full
view)
http://books.google.com/books?id=mlBOAAAAYAAJ&q=%22butt+hole%22#v=snippet&

[Begin excerpt]
Then the conclusion is "They've a got the old badger up into a butt
hole." This means that he can go no further, except over the body of
the assailing dog; and now it is time for the picks and spades, and
the diggers' work.
[End excerpt]

On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 10:03 PM, Ben Zimmer
<bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: 1947 citing in Archie Comic of "butthole."  What did it mean?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 9:51 PM, Baker, John <JBAKER at stradley.com> wrote:
>>
>> Sam Clements said:
>> >
>> > Google News hit, posted over at Straight Dope by an alert reader.
>> >
>> >
> http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=plAsAAAAIBAJ&sjid=E8sEAAAAIBAJ&dq=calendar-girl&pg=4081%2C91102
>> >
>> > Betty says to Archie  "Being an usher after school must be prime."
>> >
>> > Archie replies  "Oh, it gets kinda butthole at times."
>> >
>> > How would this get by a censor if it had a modern meaning?  What did it
>> > mean in the context of the times? Not in the OED as such that I could find.
>>
>> I suspect vandalism.  Has it been checked against the same comic in
>> a different newspaper?
>
> It checks out -- Newspaperarchive has the same strip in the Elyria (OH)
> Chronicle-Telegram, Apr. 2, 1947.
>
> Further discussion on BoingBoing:
>
> http://boingboing.net/2012/04/22/do-you-kiss-betty-andor-veron.html
>
>
> --bgz
>
> --
> Ben Zimmer
> http://benzimmer.com/
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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