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

Wed Apr 25 17:29:10 UTC 2012

Allow me to recommend HDAS as a more informative source for "bunghole" than
the unrevised OED.

I'll also qualify my previous answer. "Bunghole" would be acceptable in
a cartoon if it referred to the hole in a barrel.  But even the slightest
suggestion of an anatomical meaning would not have passed.

How common was it in the U.S. to refer to a barrel as a "butt"?  I'd think
it was very rare outside the industry.

But the real mysteries for me are how Montana's word got printed and why
anatomical "butthole" was so uncommon before the 1960s.

SWAG:  It was used primarily in the South and Midwest, which were short on
both naturalistic novelists and unflinching dialectologists. Also, IIRC,
even naturalistic novels are scanty on that kind of reference until the
'60s and '70s.  But that doesn't explain what it was doing in "Archie."

JL

On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 12:56 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: 1947 citing in Archie Comic of "butthole." What did it
> mean?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > 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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