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

Baker, John JBAKER at STRADLEY.COM
Wed Apr 25 03:16:53 UTC 2012 

Yes, I know that "beat off" had the masturbate sense in 1968, but most uses were nonsexual and did not call the masturbate sense to mind.  Apparently that has changed.

With regard to "butthole," I think we can at least make a few assertions.

1.  You should not think of comic strips in 1947 as being like comic strips today.  The comics were the most popular part of the paper and the most thoroughly scrutinized for objectionable material.  This strip was seen by millions of people and dozens if not hundreds of editors.  And yet, at least in the papers we've seen, the strip was routinely published.  It follows that people simply did not find it objectionable.  We may not be giving enough weight to the fact that "butthole" in the modern sense is not yet attested.

2.  Well, what did it mean?  At this point, it's conjectural.  Jon's arguments against "cul de sac" seem pretty strong.  There may be some significance to theatres as places that hold butts, especially since Archie has had to watch the same movie many times, which I think is an important factor in its meaning.  "Butt" is probably less offensive when it's in the sense of the seat rather than in an excretory sense.

3.  Somewhat undercutting all of this is the point that I made in my prior post, that there are two consecutive days with usages that seem to us to be double entendres at best.  But, while Bob Montana or the jokester may have had something else in mind, they were able to pass scrutiny somehow.


John Baker




-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Jonathan Lighter
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2012 8:37 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: 1947 citing in Archie Comic of "butthole." What did it mean?

In 1968 "beat off" meant just what it means now.

The difference is that because the sexual meaning was so outrageously
obscene, nobody was supposed to acknowledge its existence - ever! So even
if a million proto-Bevis and Buttheads were snickering at the strip,
everyone else was expected to pretend the sexual meaning hadn't occurred to
them.

Nowadays, everything is expected to have a sexual significance, if
possible.

I'm unconvinced by the "cul de sac" notion because the OED gives only a
lone 1905 example from an English rural  setting. Unless Montana was
searching for it, I don't think he'd be aware of it as a "defensible
meaning," particularly as OED spells it as two words.

I wouldn't rule out sabotage by the proverbial disgruntled employee. And
maybe the editorial lapse is not so odd after all: what comics editor would
double-check "Archie" for a bad word?

Even I can recall a time when "quickie" primarily meant  a quick drink, or
almost anything done quickly. By the early '70s, the innocent senses were
fading fast.  (Even now you can do "a quickie job," but that's an adj.)

One-liners on _Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In_ (which premiered in 1967) were
called "quickies."  They were accompanied by body-painted girls in bikinis
dancing the frug.  But that kind of equivocal pun can't compare to
"butthole" in a comic strip in a family newspaper in 1947.

Here's a surprise, from 1904:
http://books.google.com/books?id=O6IrAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA14&dq=butthole&hl=en&sa=X&ei=EkOXT_HoFpKbtwfkzPXXAQ&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=butthole&f=false

The word is being used by telegraph operators as a quickie code for a
mining company.  Go figure, especially since the far more "defensible"
"bunghole" doesn't make the list. Other than the OED ex., it's the only ex.
of "butthole" in any sense that GB produces before 1950.

In fact, GB shows virtually no other plausible ex. of "butthole" (except in
a rural English place name), before 1962. The single exception is from the
journal _Veneers and Plywood_ (apparently 1952), which refers casually to a
hole in a tree trunk as a "butt hole."

Does the arboreal "butt hole" or something similar appear in the 1934 W2?
Conceivably Montana heard the word as he uses it, then checked to see if
there was an innocent meaning, then went ahead and printed it.  But, as I
inquired before, why risk trouble?

In any  case, the lack of further exx. of _butthole_ *'disagreeable' seems
significant. Of what, I'm not sure.

File under "The Indeterminate" - in The Twilight Zone....

JL

On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 7:17 PM, Baker, John <JBAKER at stradley.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Baker, John" <JBAKER at STRADLEY.COM>
> Subject:      Re: 1947 citing in Archie Comic of "butthole." What did it
> mean?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>         Here's my theory:  Someone (a jokester clerical employee at the
> syndicate?  A disgruntled assistant?  Bob Montana himself?) was playing
> around with language, using a then obscure off-color reference that also
> had a defensible legitimate meaning.  In this case, the defensible meaning
> is "dead end" (nobody said "cul de sac" in 1947).
>
>        Why do I think it's a jokester?  On the surface, the idea that it's
> a surprising but innocent use has a certain appeal.  Certainly there are
> plenty of other cases that may seem obscene to us but were innocent when
> used.  Another Archie example is a comic book from 1968,
> http://www.comicbookdaily.com/daily_news/sleepy-cendor-12/, in which
> Archie has just rescued a bikini-clad Betty.  She asks, "Archie, did you
> have any trouble rescuing me?" and he replies, "I sure did Betty! I had to
> BEAT OFF three other guys!"  We see them in the background, bearing
> bruises.  "Beat off" meant one thing in 1968, but another thing today.
>
>        Here's my evidence, based on a find by a poster at the Straight
> Dope Message Board.  The very next day, Archie is in his usher's uniform.
>  In the first panel,
> http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=q1AsAAAAIBAJ&sjid=E8sEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3431%2C183360,
> another usher says "Archie!  The manager said you can take off _30_
> minutes!"  Archie replies, "Swell!  I can hop over to the Chok'lit Shop for
> a quickie!"  In 1947, "quickie" could mean a quick drink (a soda is shown
> in the last panel), but it also could have the current meaning of a quick
> sexual act.
>
>
> John Baker
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> Of Jonathan Lighter
> Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2012 8:22 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: 1947 citing in Archie Comic of "butthole." What did it mean?
>
> This mystifies me, in part because I've never encountered "butthole"
> used predicatively in any sense. Has anybody?
>
> HDAS has literal, vulgar "butthole" from 1951, but since "butt" is
> documented as the human buttocks from the 18th C. (OED does a poor job
> here), there can be little doubt it is far older.
>
> So editors in 1947 would have understood the word anatomically exactly as
> we do.
>
> A large part of the mystery, then, is how the word slipped passed the
> editors.  How many papers ran this particular strip?  A second question is
> how "butthole" got into the strip in the first place.  I wouldn't rule out
> sabotage quite yet.
>
> Surely Bob Montana (a WWII veteran) must have been aware of the
> implications of "butthole," even if he'd never heard the word used.
>
> Even if he'd actually heard somebody use "butthole" to mean "unpleasant;
> boring," I can't imagine why he'd want to risk stirring up trouble for
> himself.  (Its counterpart, "prime," sounds to me like typical teen lingo
> of 1947.)
>
> Finally, somebody in the Boing Boing discussion calls Archie a "cockfart."
> That seems unfairly judgmental.
>
> JL
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 12:27 AM, Garson O'Toole
> <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: 1947 citing in Archie Comic of "butthole." What did it
> > mean?
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > 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
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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