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

[Joel S. Berson]

At 5/10/2012 08:21 AM, Amy West wrote:
>On 5/10/12 12:02 AM, Automatic digest processor wrote:
>>OED1 does have the relevant sense, covering both animal and human buttocks:
>>
>>http://books.google.com/books?id=r2pXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1215
>Indeed, there it is. Butt sb3, sense 3. Thanks for correcting my error.
>I don't know why I missed it earlier, other than that I was looking at a
>print copy. That pretty much settles that any pre-teen or teen boys
>would snicker about "butthole" regardless of its non-vulgar use,

I certainly would have, and I was a boy in the 40s.  It's a
transparent compound (if interpreted in the way pre-teen or teen boys
would), whether or not one finds it in print.

Joel

>and
>regardless of Maher's claim that "butt" wasn't used that way in the 40s.
>
>---Amy West

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org