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

Mon Apr 30 01:01:58 UTC 2012

John's analysis is as acute as always, but I don't think we can say with
any confidence that "butthole" was "vanishingly rare" in 1947,  given the
taboo or semi-taboo nature of the term, the antiquity of "butt," and the
discovery of a printed 1942 ex. that was already part of a larger idiom
("cut someone a new butt-hole").

Of course, the above explains nothing.  Anyone adult familiar with "butt"
(and there must have been millions) would have been likely to associate
even a novel-seeming "butthole" with the anus - regardless if Montana was
punning on the packing-industry term.

Which few people knew.  And if Montana knew it, he'd know it referred to a
cow's asshole, and - if he had any sense - he wouldn't have put it in his
strip. I suspect that the semantic link to "prime" is simply a coincidence.

Unless, in line with Doug, it was intended by a letterer as an April Fool's
prank - a prank that succeeded too well.

JL

On Sun, Apr 29, 2012 at 8:40 PM, Baker, John <JBAKER at stradley.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Baker, John" <JBAKER at STRADLEY.COM>
> Subject:      Re: 1947 citing in Archie Comic of "butthole." What did it
> mean?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The transcription error theory assumes a lot.  It's certainly possible
> that Bob Montana, the Archie artist, had someone else do his lettering.  I
> would guess (but don't know) that Montana inked the strip himself, but
> lettering is a specialized and, to most cartoonists, rather boring skill.
>  For example, Carl Barks, who otherwise  created the Donald Duck and Uncle
> Scrooge comic book stories from scratch, had his wife do the lettering.  If
> Montana had any kind of artistic assistant at all, that person would have
> done its lettering.  Most cartoonists today use computer fonts.  But
> consider the following assumptions implicit in the theory:
>
> 1. It assumes that the letterer would have seen some other word and
> instead lettered "butthole," a word that at the time was vanishingly rare
> and, under this assumption, would have made no sense in context.
>
> 2.  It assumes that Montana did not even look at the strip before it was
> sent off to the syndicate.  That can't have been normal procedure.
>
> 3.  It assumes that there was no question from the syndicate or from the
> carrying newspapers (except maybe in Zanesville).  I would think that the
> syndicate may well have asked Montana about the word, possibly even by long
> distance telephone.  Presumably he had some satisfactory explanation of the
> word's meaning (unfortunately unobtainable to us).  As for the carrying
> newspapers, there were 700 of these, according to Wikipedia, and each had
> an editor.  The 700 number is probably from when the strip's popularity was
> at its height, but I expect that was around 1947.  In many small towns, of
> course, the comic strips would have been run without further review, and
> probably there had never been any trouble from Archie, which was not a
> transgressive strip, but larger newspapers would know from sad experience
> that every strip had to be reviewed.
>
> So, while I don't mean to eliminate a transcription error as a
> possibility, I think the theory raises more questions than it answers.
>
>
> John Baker
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> Of Jonathan Lighter
> Sent: Sunday, April 29, 2012 7:47 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: 1947 citing in Archie Comic of "butthole." What did it mean?
>
> "Dullville" is a good guess, but AFAIK the adjective isn't recorded till
> the beatnik era. (The 1951 exx. I see are nouns, e.g., "runs from Boreburg
> to Dullville" [Walter Winchell].)
>
> *If* it existed in 1947, it might have been the sort of word that teenagers
> would use.
>
> It's a big *if,* however.  And  "Dullsville" has always been far more
> common.
>
>
> JL
>
> On Sun, Apr 29, 2012 at 5:46 PM, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas at nb.net> wrote:
>
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
> > Subject:      Re: 1947 citing in Archie Comic of "butthole." What did it
> > mean?
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > The word "dull[s]ville" suggests itself.
> >
> > I see "Dullville" in more-or-less appropriate figurative use as early as
> > 1951. It could have been in existence -- although likely infrequent and
> > not universally familiar -- as early as 1947.
> >
> > Whoever inked the strip's text could have copied this word wrong, for
> > any of several reasons (perhaps even intentionally), e.g., in tracing or
> > transcribing a partially illegible draft.
> >
> > ----------
> >
> > The defacement of "butthole" in the Zanesville paper is interesting. To
> > my eye, this is extremely unlikely to be fortuitous: I believe someone
> > disliked the word and scrubbed it out. Is it possible to guess when/how
> > this occurred? I picture some reader (in 1947, or maybe in [say] 1987)
> > simply defacing a copy, the copy which was digitized for N'archive,
> > which appears to be labeled "Ohio State Museum / Newspaper Division".
> > Might it be possible to review a different copy (in a different library
> > or whatever)?
> >
> > ----------
> >
> > Has somebody already noted the date of the item? Maybe set up for print
> > on 1 April, I suppose? Do strange things appear on the same date in
> > other years?
> >
> > (In the Elyria paper I find "Archie" from 2 April 1946, without anything
> > stranger than "chippin' your gums". The 1 April 1946 installment is
> > devoted to Archie's friends playing a trick on him [but Jughead seems to
> > take the medicine instead]. I don't find anything explicit for the
> > special day in 1947.)
> >
> > -- Doug Wilson
> >
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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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