[Ads-l] Antedating of "blow job"

[Barretts Mail]

That makes a lot more sense. 

FWIW, at least four (пуши, fajka, πίπα, τσιμπούκι) come from smoking, and most listed there are from sucking. “French” also comes up at least twice (Französisch, francès) as does mouth (bocchino).

Benjamin Barrett (he/his/him)
Formerly of Seattle, WA

> On 28 Jul 2022, at 13:07, Colin Morris <colin at CS.TORONTO.EDU> wrote:
> 
> There's also the simple fact that fellatio involves configuring the mouth
> in a way that resembles blowing on a musical instrument or whistling. I
> clicked around on the translation table for Wiktionary's entry for
> "blowjob", and it seems there are other languages that have slang terms for
> fellatio with derivations along these lines, e.g.:
> 
> - Japanese, 尺八, "shakuhachi, a Japanese end-blown flute"
> - Chinese, 吹簫, "to play the xiao (a flute)"
> - Bulgarian, свирка, "whistle"
> - Dutch, pijpen, "to whistle; to hum; to blow (as in to play a wind
> instrument)"
> 
> On Thu, Jul 21, 2022 at 11:16 AM Barretts Mail <mail.barretts at gmail.com <mailto:mail.barretts at gmail.com>>
> wrote:
> 
>> The HDAS has 1942 for “blow job” from “No Laughing Matter” and says the
>> word comes from prostitution, which makes sense as the origin for the word
>> “job” (also "hand job", "foot job"). (FWIW, “blow-job” is hyphenated, but
>> it’s at the end of a line, so it’s not clear whether the hyphen is in the
>> original citation.)
>> 
>> The origin of “blow” is less clear as blowing (exhaling) and fellating
>> (inward suction) are essentially opposites. The HDAS cites “blow” (fellate)
>> back to c 1930 (p 198, definition 9a) but has no origin.
>> 
>> A possibility is definition 5a of “blow” in the HDAS: “squander
>> money/waste time”. Citations include “‘To blow oneself,’ to spend money
>> freely”. This is also under definition 9 of the OED.
>> 
>> It is also possible that there is a connection to tobacco smoke enemas,
>> where smoke was blown into the rectum. This might be at least contributory.
>> 
>> What seems the most probable origin of “blow” (fellate) out of the items I
>> checked is HDAS definition 3a “to puff upon (a pipe)”. This is also in the
>> OED under definition 9b, which has the expression “blow a cloud”. It makes
>> sense that the act of “exhaling a cloud of smoke” could develop into the
>> idea of “inhaling from a pipe”.
> 


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