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

[Jonathan Lighter]

>  it could have been overlooked because it was self-explanatory. . .

Nope. "Ass-hole" was included. If it was overlooked, it was just plain
overlooked.

But we still don't know where Bob Montana got the idea that "butthole,"
whatever he was thinking, was a synonym for "disagreeable or boring."  And
apparently he was the only person on record who thought it did in the 1940s.

Nor do we know how his various editors failed to flag it, even on the vague
hunch that it might be taken to be obscene.

Another point: I'd have expected '40s orthography conventions to use a
hyphen, as did Z. N. Hurston. The lack of it might have misled an editor.
But many editors?

Wait! I know! The devil recently planted the word to fool us into believing
that "butthole"  wouldn't have seemed vulgar in 1947!  That way, we'd
forget how disgusting we've become since!

JL

On Fri, Apr 27, 2012 at 10:39 AM, Amy West <medievalist at w-sts.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Amy West <medievalist at W-STS.COM>
> Subject:      Re: 1947 citing in Archie Comic of "butthole." What did it
> mean?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On 4/27/12 12:00 AM, Automatic digest processor wrote:
> > Date:    Thu, 26 Apr 2012 23:13:24 -0400
> > From:    Ben Zimmer<bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> > Subject: Re: 1947 citing in Archie Comic of "butthole." What did it mean?
> >
> > Further discussion by James McElvenny on Fully (sic), an Australian
> linguablog:
> >
> > http://blogs.crikey.com.au/fullysic/2012/04/27/kind-of-butthole/
> >
> It's a good blog post about it. I'll have to check to see if that sense
> of "butthole" was in OED 1 when I get home. The other question is
> whether the writer would have checked to see if it had a non-marked sense.
>
> Re: "butthole" not showing up in a list of slang synonyms, which was
> mentioned in a previous post, it could have been overlooked because it
> was self-explanatory. . .
>
> Finally, re: this getting by the censors: that was half the fun for the
> writers and artists. Remember that comics have always been subversive.
>
> ---Amy West
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



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