[Ads-l] Antedating of "blow job"

[Wilson Gray]

> Legman's 1941 glossary has "blow the meat whistle."
> "to play the xiao (a flute)"
"to play the skin flute"




On Fri, Jul 29, 2022 at 11:02 AM Barretts Mail <mail.barretts at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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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>


-- 
- Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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