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

[Jonathan Lighter]

No no no. Archie = "fictional."  Bob Montana = "real."

NewspaperArchive has been down this evening. I intended to search for the
phrase "*Being an usher after school must be prime*!"  That could help
determine how many other papers ran the strip that day, and in what form.
"Archie" debuted in 1946.

The book cited by Jerry Cohen is described by its author as a "novel," but
it seems to be more of a fictionalized memoir.  The author, Leo. D.
Gallagher, writes that he (or his fictionalized stand-in, "Danny O'Conner")
took basic training at Fort Knox, Ky., in 1946.  Fort Knox had been an
important Army training center during WW2.

Jack B. Scott, in _May Day! May Day_ (2005), a nonfictional memoir, says he
witnessed a cigarette funeral at Fort Warren, Wyoming, in 1941.

There are perhaps a half dozen GB references to the reality of the
punishment in WW2: a small number. Very unfortunately, the earliest
documentation I can find is in Marion Hargrove's _The Girl He Left Behind_.
 Hargrove trained in 1941 but, I don't know whether he alluded to the
practice in his 1942 bestseller, _See Here, Private Hargrove!_.

Offhand I don't see any GB references contemporaneous with WW2: rather odd,
considering the memorable nature of the event.

JL

On Sat, Apr 28, 2012 at 8:30 PM, Dan Nussbaum <yekkey at aol.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dan Nussbaum <yekkey at AOL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: 1947 citing in Archie Comic of "butthole." What did it
> mean?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> But Archie must have been a very young soldier, and have already been
> disch=
> arged and working in thprivate sector, to employ the word.
>
>
> Or he had a big brother or an uncle who had been in the service.
>
>
> Dan Nussbaum
>
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