butt-hole = intestine as sausage casing

[Laurence Horn]

On Apr 29, 2012, at 10:56 PM, J P Maher wrote:

> Reading "butt" as arse is anachronistic.

I'm not sure I see why, unless the reference occurs pre-19th c.  There are attestations for "butt" 'buttocks, ass' cited in the HDAS back to 1815, and an 1859 lexicon provides an entry for _butt_ glossed as "the buttocks…The word is used in the West in such phrases as "I fell on my butt", "He kick'd my butt".   It's true it probably wasn't used in comic strips in the Civil War era, though, or allowed on TV.  To be sure, "butthole" 'anus' has no entry prior to 1953, but since it's apparently from a collection called _Old Ballads_, it seems reasonable to assume it was around well before then in speech (or at least song).  And if "butt" meant what it's clear it did mean before the 20th c. was even underway, the meaning of "butthole" would be fairly transparent, even if it wasn't readily attested in the 40s.

LH

> Like the kid who comes home from school and tells her mom how they learned about A. Lincoln getting shot in Ford's Theater while watching a movie. We kids of the 1940s said "can, ass, behind" and for kiddies "hiney", but not "butt". In the 1960s came "get off your [lazy] butt" and by the 1980s  "butt-shot" for a photo focusing on the derriere. It was brilliant of Warren Brewer to spot the repartee between Archie and Betty: she mentioning "prime [sc. beef] " and he retorting  "butt-hole", for intestine used as sausage casing. "Betty's "prime  and Archie's "butt-hole" (hot-dog meat, sausage) are antonyms. Remember Bismarck:  politics is like sausage making. Sausage may be tasty, but you won't want to eat any if you ever saw what went into the making of it. Earlier, Jean Paul on "Wurst"."eine Goetterspeise - divine meal", since only God knows what's in there.
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