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

[Jonathan Lighter]

"Would not have interpreted" is what I meant.

JL

On Tue, May 8, 2012 at 10:10 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

> These exx. are not commensurable with the word in "Archie." The assertion
> that they are partly assumes that taboos and semi-taboos must be logically
> consistent, which I think is obviously not so.
>
> But more important: the secondary vulgar meanings of the terms cited are
> indeed *secondary.*  In every case the innocuous sense not only came first,
> it was well established and in most cases universally known before the
> vulgar sense appeared.  Thus any vulgar sense could easily be disregarded
> where its appearance would be contextually illogical.
>
> In the case of "butthole," however, no completely innocuous, generally
> known, and current earlier sense seems to have existed.  The 1904 brokerage
> "butthole" may be an exception, but even we lexicological experts are not
> sure what it meant. If it was innocuous, as it presumably was, there seems
> to be little enough evidence of people using it or recognizing it. Bob
> Montana could not have expected his readers to know it either.
>
> Moreover, with _butt_ 'buttocks' widely known in 1947 (even to Mrs. X,
> though she believed she'd only heard it in  "Move your butt!"), plus the
> currency of "asshole," it seems impossible for me to believe that a vast
> number, perhaps even most, readers, would have interpreted the word in an
> anal sense.
>  \-\
>
> Now, as Mrs. X suggested, whether they would have allowed themselves to
> assume that's what Archie was actually alluding to is another question. But
> the fact appears to be that "butthole," adj 'boring' exists nowhere else,
> and it is difficult to imagine what it's doing in "Archie."
>
> The case for a perfectly innocuous understanding of "butthole" in 1947 is
> weakened almost to nothing by the complete absence of further examples of
> Montana's implied sense both before and (now 65 years) after. (Did Jon
> Green find one? I never did, and I obsessively recorded every new slang
> term I came across for forty years, including those from hundreds of slang
> questionnaires turned in by often potty-mouthed college students.) The case
> is weakened further by John's survey of newspapers and, if I may say so, my
> own reading experience, both of which suggest that editors in 1947 avoided
> printing _butt_ 'buttocks' as vulgar.
>
> But "butthole"?  The mystery is far from solved.
>
> Maybe I'll have the Archie book by the end of this week.
>
> JL
>
>
>
> On Tue, May 8, 2012 at 9:29 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?
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Now you made me think of Blazing Saddles!
>>
>>     VS-)
>>
>> On 5/8/2012 8:42 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>> > And the name of the first black, world's heavyweight boxing champion,
>> > Jack Johnson, of Galveston, Texas, would also have been some kind of
>> > pun for "penis," as would be the company name, Johnson & Johnson. "A
>> > johnson?! That thing is a johnson *&* johnson!"
>> > -- -Wilson
>>
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>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>



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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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