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

Sat Apr 28 18:12:48 UTC 2012

Jerry Cohen has asked me to forward the following message, which gremlins
have been forestalling:

As promised, here's the passage from Leo D. Gallagher's _One for the
Boneyard: Book Two of the Trilogy "Depraved"_ :

[page 20]: 'We became accustomed to the routine of basic training and fell
into it with all the enthusiasm that only youth can muster and though at
all times it was rough and rowdy and distasteful, still one forgot the mud
and the indignities of yesterday for the exciting agenda of today and the
surprises of tomorrow. Like the holes many of us were made to dig near the
barracks for slight infractions of the rules, like throwing a short
cigarette butt down in the company street when the sergeant was looking.

"You will bury that cigarette butt, soldier. You will excavate a hole. This
hole will be exactly six feet long, six feet wide and six feet deep. You
will place that cigarette butt precisely in the bottom of this excavation
and then you will give it the proper internment."

'So the unfortunate malefactor completed the digging, which usually kept
him or them up until midnight, with reveille scheduled at five. In the pale
light of early morning the offending butt was place in the hole under the
watchful eyes of the sergeant, appropriate words were spoken over the dead
cigarette and the huge mound of fresh dirt was shoveled into the hole and
the pile was properly tamped and leveled. That was usually the end of the
incident, unless of course, the sergeant had deemed that the "screw-off"
was a habitual offender by his attitude or he had "screwed off" and took
too long to dig the hole or he was just a smart ass to begin with.

In which case, after the recruit had filled in the hole and he though his
labor was over in fact it was just beginning all over again!

'The sergeant would inquire innocently, "Say, soldier, what brand was that
cigarette butt you just buried?"

'The unsuspecting subject of this seemingly trivial question would answer,
"It was a Camel, sergeant."

"It didn't look like it said Camel on it to me. I thought it was a Lucky
Strike. Better dig it up again and let's make sure. We wouldn't want to
make a mistake like that, now would we?"

'With that the entire process would begin again and when that noncom was
finished with any wayward recruit, rest assured the process did not have to
be repeated.'

[End of quoted passage]

Gerald Cohen

P.S. So when Archie said (in reference to being an usher at a movie theatre
and seeing the same movie
over and over again--18 times to be exact) "It gets kind of butthole at
times", he meant that his job got to be as dreary/wearying as digging one
of those holes to bury a cigarette butt. Montana had slipped in a term that
most of the public would not likely know. But any soldiers who had heard
the story about the hole-digging-to-bury-a-discarded-cigarette punishment
(and such stories no doubt spread beyond whatever base or bases they
occurred at), would no doubt have known exactly why Archie wasn't enthused
about his ushering job.

On Sat, Apr 28, 2012 at 1:46 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: 1947 citing in Archie Comic of "butthole." What did it
> mean?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Funny you should say that... From the latest Tea Party email:
>
> > "If you haven’t heard, I'm talking about the blitz we the Tea Party
> > set into motion, steamrolling right over the lame-brain media to
> > expose American’s Fraud President for who he really is: con-man, scam
> > artist, liar, snake oil salesman--Satan incarnate."
>
> What's a retroactive change in a newspaper or two for Satan Incarnate!
>
> Other gems from the screed:
>
> > Why won’t you hear about this in the main drain media?
>
> > Oh no, the pi**-off press would rather we all stand in the middle of
> > the street with tattered cardboard signs yelling, "The Sky Is Falling"
> > so they can keep us on a short leash. Not happening.
>
> Some is actually paid to write this stuff.
>
> > Because of strong Patriots like you and me, the only thing that's
> > going to be falling is America's Fraud President--right off his high
> > horse and back to the hole he crawled out of. Oh yeah, in whatever
> > country that may have been because it sure as sh*t wasn’t the U.S. And
> > the other thing that's going to be falling? The media morons, right on
> > their proverbial swords, when they see what the Tea Party is exposing.
> > It’s the biggest fraud ever carried out at the expense of the American
> > people, and the media muppets--all the president's puppets--are too
> > busy burying their noses up the president's arse to see it.
> > ...
> > Word on the street has it that clandestine meetings are taking place
> > behind closed doors of the media sweat shops. Hushed whispers are
> > being heard up and down the hallways.
> > ...
> > arrogant little bas"turds"
> > ...
> > All I can say is: HOT DA*N!
> > ...
> > Some refuse to pick up. Others slam the receiver down and tell us to
> > "F-Off!" A few, however, listen and rejoice that someone with enough
> > -balls- intestinal fortitude is finally standing up to the Obama Media
> > Machine and bringing the TRUTH to grassroots America.
>
> The mix of taboo avoidance devices is actually interesting. They seem to
> be using /all/ of them.
>
> We have pi**-off, sh*t, F-Off, HOT DA*N, but also arse and -ball- (the
> latter with strike-through). "Arse", to me, sounds unusual, as this is
> not the normal spelling in this context. So, rather than excising a few
> letters, they just thought, apparently, that using alternative spelling
> will get them off the hook. Fun, fun stuff... and they put out several
> of these every day.
>
> VS-)
>
> On 4/28/2012 1:11 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> > But that could only be done by God or the devil.
> >
> > Oh! Wait!
> >
> > JL
>
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>

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

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