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

[Jonathan Lighter]

1. No.

2. No.

3. Yes.

4. Possibly, but I'd think it wouldn't.

"Bunghole" is not used predicatively either.

JL

On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 12:46 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: 1947 citing in Archie Comic of "butthole." What did it
> mean?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 4/25/2012 10:01 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> > >  Is there any possibility that "butthole" could have meant "bottom of
> the
> >barrel"?
>
> A la "bung-hole", which JL mentions casually below but astonishingly
> does not call attention to?
>
> 1)  Did "bung-hole" ever mean "disagreeable"?  Or whatever Archie
> meant by "Oh, it gets kinda butthole at times."
>
> 2)  Could someone possibly have transformed "bung-hole" into "butthole"?
>
> 3)  That still leaves questions, including how it got past the censors.
>
> 4)  Even "bung-hole" might not have passed the censors -- it was used
> to mean "anus" in a 1611 dictionary, in the definition of a type of
> fish, so presumably it was well-understood in that sense then.  (But
> apparently not used later, I conclude from the absence of additional
> quotations in the OED.)
>
> Joel
>
>
>
>
> >It all depends on what "means" means.  If it means, "What did it mean to
> >Bob Montana?" I think we have to say that we have no idea beyond
> >"disagreeable (in some unspecified way)," and we believe that solely from
> >context. Remember, Montana is the only person in human history known to
> >have used "butthole" predicatively, and even he only printed it (God knows
> >how) one time.
> >
> >If we take the strip at face value, either it was a word-and-meaning that
> >Montana overheard and innocently chose to pass on, or else he invented it
> >for the sake of the strip.  The latter seems awfully unlikely, because it
> >implies an awareness that "butthole" has negative associations. It
> >certainly would be a coincidence if Montana had coined a word from whole
> >cloth that later became a common vulgarism.
> >
> >If the photo images show what loggers seem to have referred to technically
> >as a "butthole," that would essentially prove a pre-1904 currency of the
> >anatomical term.  But maybe the photographers just thought it looked like
> >  butthole to them.
> >
> >Or did the appearance of a perfectly innocent "butthole" in "Archie"
> >actually introduce the word into American speech via a million
> dirty-minded
> >teenagers?
> >
> >Sounds crazy and undoubtedly *is* crazy.  However, not even Berrey & Van
> >den Bark's 1942/43 _American Thesaurus of Slang_, compiled in big-city Los
> >Angeles in Montana's home state of California, lists "butthole" in any
> >sense.
> >
> >Besides "ass" and "butt" itself, it does contain, on p. 151,
> >"Ass-hole...bum-hole, bung-hole,...a-hole" and even the extraordinarily
> >uncommon (and possibly erroneous) "slop chute."
> >
> >The absence of "butthole" is certainly strange. But it could have been an
> >oversight.
> >
> >As for the willful suppression of vulgar associations, I'm still amazed by
> >the innocuousness of "male" and "female" "screws."
> >
> >When I was a UFO buff in the 1960s, I learned that sometimes *no*
> >explanation seems to make sense. For now, this appears to be one of those
> >cases.
> >
> >JL
> >
> >"If the truth is as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
> >
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>
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