[Ads-l] Antedating of "blow job"

[Laurence Horn]

Speaking of wind instruments...

French may be among relatively few languages that sport a transitive verb
underspecified for the meaning 'perform oral sex on', where the object can
denote a female or male individual. Standard glosses are exemplified by
those in the OED, "To practise fellatio or cunnilingus on or with (a
person)" for the verb and "An act of fellatio or cunnilingus" for the
derived nominalization. The origin is unknown (barring a fanciful
derivation), but there are two curiosities about Farmer & Henley's cite:
(1) the main entry is given as _gamaruche_, although _gamahuche_ is given
as a variant (orthographically speaking)
(2) it cross-references "to bag-pipe"--this is where the wind instrument
comes into play, but checking F&H's entry for that verb, we are told only
that it's

"A lascivious practice; too indecent to mention"

Curious, since the practice (or practices) in question ("to irrumate", "to
cunnilinge") is mentioned under the _gamaruche_ entry, not to mention the
degree of indecentness mentioned elsewhere by F&H.  Also the non-definition
is given for a noun form but it's the verb that's being left undefined.
It's as if they were too busy fanning their faces at the indecorous item to
even notice the discrepancy.

Seriously, though, I wonder if there's independent evidence that F&H grew
bolder with their glosses as they moved from Vol. I (1890) (hosting "to
bag-pipe") to Vol. III (1893) (hosting "gama{r/h}uche") and beyond.

LH

On Fri, Jul 29, 2022 at 12:11 PM Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

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

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