Posted on 06/27/2002 11:21:24 AM PDT by ex-Texan
Who Invented the 'B!tch Slap?'
Lexicographer Shows How Some Four-Letter Words Are More than Insults
By Andrew Chang
June 27 — As part of his job, Jesse Sheidlower has pondered what it means to "whack" someone, and spent time considering where "blunts" might have come from.
At other times, "b!tch-slaps" have been the focus of his attention. He's best known for the attention he's given to the ultimate four-letter word. The F-word. But Sheidlower is no gangster-philosopher, or mafia wise man. The 33-year-old, given to suits and complete sentences, is the North American editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, the 20-volume work that traces the origins of the English language.
And "whacks," "blunts" and "b!tch-slaps" are part of his work as much as verbs, nouns, and adjectives. In case you're wondering, "whack" means "to kill", a "blunt" is a cigar stuffed with marijuana, and a "b!tch-slap" is "to slap a person as a pimp would slap a prostitute."
Along with five principal editors and dozens of other contributors, he is compiling the first major rewrite of the OED, a $55 million project that is being called "the world's largest humanities research project."
The How and the Why
Much of Sheidlower's work consists of identifying new words and drafting new terms about their origins, and reviewing and verifying the entries of others.
He also supervises the North American reading program, a staff of volunteers who scour publications for new entries for the OED. Their readings encompass practically anything printed with the English language — from boat-building guides to rap music.
One reader is examining the 12-volume set of the journals of the Lewis and Clark expedition, with an eye to how the usage of certain words might have differed during that time.
Much of their work involves antedating — finding an earlier specific usage than was previously thought to exist.
While this work may seem like a lot of intellectualizing, Sheidlower says the work is important for understanding who the users of the English language are, and exactly what they meant when they used it.
The word "jazz" provides a perfect example. The original OED said the first citation of jazz was in 1909, but further research found the citation was from 1919. They subsequently determined the first citation to be from 1913.
"This is extremely significant, it's not just a theoretical significance because this is perhaps the most important American art form of the 20th century," Sheidlower said.
"A great amount of effort has been spent researching its origins, not only among linguists or lexicographers but historians of music, African-American culture and dance and so forth." As a result, these people might have to re-evaluate how jazz developed, how it spread and who were the earliest jazz musicians, he said.
For a more recent example, Sheidlower brought up the term "virtual reality." Computer scientist Jaron Lanier is often credited with coining the term in 1987, he said. In the early 1980s, Lanier helped develop one of the first devices for interacting with a virtual world. But Sheidlower discovered an earlier use of the word dating from 1979, in an internal IBM document.
"Something you thought you knew that was very clear, something that had a major impact on computing ... go[ing] back a difference of eight years is very significant."
The Rising and Falling Power of Words
Sheidlower's work not only gives hints to the past, but it also gives an insight on the present.
Take, for example, the ways in which epithets are delivered. As little as 300 to 400 years ago, terms attacking someone's parentage were extremely offensive, Sheidlower said. Today, he said, "bastard is not a very severe thing to call someone," and a term like "who**son" is hardly used at all. Who**son is a term implying one is the offspring of a prostitute
The power of sexual terms has changed too, he said. While it's still unusual to find them used in formal company, "they don't raise eyebrows, they don't force people to run out of the room the way they might have 100 years ago."
In contrast, racial epithets have gained power. "Twenty, 30 years ago, it was not a big deal for using these terms, now it's the worst thing you can say." It would be much more damaging now for a politician to use a racial epithet today than it would have been 50 years ago for him to use an expletive, he said.
Yet, Sheidlower points out, it's not entirely fair to evaluate the impact of social and historical movements by the effect they have had on language.
While World War II affected the English language tremendously, other historic movements and moments have had a minimal effect.
The influx of immigrants from Asia and Latin America have contributed little to American English, he said, but language from black America has had a tremendous effect.
An Appropriate Expert
Sheidlower brings as much familiarity with the classical origins of the English language as its seamier side.
A graduate of the University of Chicago, Sheidlower has written about language for periodicals like the Atlantic Monthly and Esquire, and served as resident linguist for National Public Radio.
He was also the project editor of The Random House Dictionary of American Slang, and the author of Jesse's Word of the Day: From Abacinate to Yonic.
But he's probably best known for his 1995 book The F-Word, a 288-page treatise on a certain unmentionable word — which prompted New York magazine to list him among New York City's 100 smartest people.
Later this year, Sheidlower will put out another book, The It-Word, a look at pop culture vocabulary in the 20th century.
But his main task is to finish the revision of the OED by 2010. When the set was last finished in 1928, it had taken 70 years to publish, and contained the meaning, history, and pronunciation of nearly half a million words.
Right now, Sheidlower is struggling with the entries for a number of words, among them "confidence man" and "geek."
"Confidence man" was previously thought to have originated in New Orleans, he said, but he found other research pointing to New York.
As for "geek," "most people now regard [it] as an overly studious or technically-minded person ... but in fact, the word goes back centuries, referring to a disliked person," he said.
But he added, "like many such terms, geeks is being used in a more positive way now."
That's because (at least in England) bastards had fewer legal rights than the normally-parented. Questioning someone's status on this was a deadly serious matter. Today it is not.
Where did my picture of Ole Crusty go? It was supposed to be right after the sentence.
needs b!tch slapped or as I say Hillary slapped
Funny stuff, no doubt. But it should have it's limitations upon usage, since it is quite macho sounding. Most intelligent women understand this humor and take it in a good light. Most that would object to the reference would likely be the liberal types and feminazis.
Regards. SOT
No that was David Horowitz at SlapHillary.com
Nah, it was the wiccan who delivered her.
In basketball officiating, at least among officials, "whack" means to give a technical foul.
For example, if a coach said, "I'm going to b!tch-slap you!", you'd whack him!
And it still works too. Talk about fun.
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