butt-hole

[J P Maher]

By Gum, you're right. Bartlett 1859 does say KICK'D MY BUTT was used in the West in his day. Which implies it was not used in his own New York in that time.  "The West"  was still east of the Mississippi then, so he's referring to Scotch-Irish.  BUTT stayed in the West until  after WW II. Holden Caulfield says BUTT for the pretty  female posterior a couple times. For the same anatomy he also says CAN (p. 93) ... BUTT-sayers today don't.  And Archie-readers can't understand 1947 discourse contrasting PRIME beef and baloney sausage.
 
 
\By gum, Bartless says so.
From: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
Subject: Re: butt-hole = intestine as sausage casing
To: J-Maher3 at neiu.edu
Cc: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Date: Sunday, April 29, 2012, 11:01 PM




On Apr 29, 2012, at 11:48 PM, J P Maher wrote:

> "The word is used in the West in such phrases as "I fell on my butt".  Since you give no dates, the statement is worthless. I'll guess you mean in your teen and adult years. What about your dad's?
>  
> 

Actually I wasn't in my teens yet in 1859, which as noted below is the date for this entry I was quote from HDAS.  It's taken from the second edition of John Russell Bartlett's _Dictionary of Americanisms_.  I don't know what date if any Bartlett gives, but it must have been earlier than 1859.  I agree this isn't dispositive as to the reference of "butthole" in the Archie strip; I merely brought it up to challenge your claim that any reference to _butt_ 'arse' in the mid-20th century is as anachronistic as a reference to Lincoln watching a movie.  

LH

> --- On Sun, 4/29/12, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
> 
> 
> From: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject: Re: butt-hole = intestine as sausage casing
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Date: Sunday, April 29, 2012, 10:19 PM
> 
> 
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: butt-hole = intestine as sausage casing
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 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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