Four&Sons

Bitchin’

BY Basil Curtis, October 22, 2012

Think for a second about being named after an animal, and then double it. Now you’ve got Snoop Doggy Dog or Calvin Broadus to no one but the taxman. But when did getting known as a dog become cool?

Calling someone a dawg started in the United States in the nighties. In African American Vernacular English, dawg is used to address a close friend. It’s in the same category as bro, homeboy, homie or homes. Once upon a time it could be heard in the ghetto, in the hood, it was ‘street legit’. And, as with any word, it has spread and become popularised. Nowadays it can be slapped onto the back of the initial of anybody’s name, just about anywhere: “What’s up T-Dog? Filed those accounts yet?” or “How’s the stock market doing, J-Dawg?”

No-one seems to have a definitive answer to why a dog over a parrot or a fish. Some people like to believe it’s because a dog is a man’s best friend, others think it’s a loyalty thing but we can safely say it’s not because the users like to smell butts. Well, we can’t guarantee that 100 per cent.

You have to be careful with who you’re calling a dawg though, as it can be highly derogatory in many cultures where dogs are wild, dirty scavengers. Depending on who says it, where they say it and how they say it, dog can be term of endearment or pejorative. It’s all to do with connotation — the implied or associated meaning a word holds.

Calling a woman a dirty dog infers she is ‘bone ugly’ linguists Keith Allan and Kate Burridge explain in their book, Euphemism and Dysphemism: Language used as shield and weapon, which focuses on the asymmetry that exists in animal terms for the sexes. The terms applied to women typically have more appalling semantics, for example compare ‘She’s a dog’ to ‘He’s a dog.’ Allan and Burridge also go on to explain that women get a raw deal in regards to other animals as well, with examples such as vixen; stupid cow or silly old bat. Men are not totally exempt, with mongrel, cur or swine all denoting a vicious, nasty fellow, held in contempt.

But possibly the most amazingly versatile insult of the lot was born from describing our beloved pooches and is predominantly associated with women – the term bitch. Originally, it was the accepted term for a female dog but now is used is a whole host
of ways:

A/ A bitch can be an unreasonable and aggressive female
B/ The male equivalent of a bitch can be deemed a Son of a bitch
C/ Something really cool is said to be bitchin’
D/ To be a person’s little bitch is to be dominated by another in a relationship
E/ You are said to bitch when you complain, moan and whine
F/ To bitch out is lack the courage to do something i.e to chicken out
G/ To bitch slap someone is to strike them with an open palm

In her essay, Bitch: A History, Clare Bailey outlines the rise of the term bitch throughout history. First it was defined and then used by Christian rulers of the Dark Age to suppress the idea of femininity as sacred. By the 18th century it’d had its literal meaning beaten out of it and became a widespread insult during women’s suffrage in the 1920’s. The second wave of feminists reclaimed the word and the third wave popularised it. Similar to the gay community and the term queer, the power and association of bitch has been taken back and associated with tough, outspoken and independent women.

So with it being 2012 and all, I can probably get away with saying, “Bitch, you look good today!”

But I won’t.

Not that you don’t look good, you do.

Did you get a haircut? No?

Your hair still looks good though dawg.

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Illustrations by Josh Gurrie
joshuagurrie.com

Tags Animals, Bitch, Book, Community, Dawg, History, Illustration, Linguistics, Living, Slang, Society, Vernacular