Open Writing

If, dear reader, you are sensitive about certain 3-letter words, proceed no further. I don’t want to offend you.

Bum is a widely used term for that part of us which is closest to the chair when we sit down. It appeared in print in the late 1300s as a term for rump, buttocks.

In Australia, it is (or was) considered by some folk to be vulgar. A primary school librarian told me in the 1980s that she would not buy any book that had ‘bum’ in it. Being a polite little chap, I refrained from asking her which part of their anatomy her students were permitted to sit on whilst in the library.

Chaucer and Shakespeare used the word freely. Shakespeare also used it in a slang name in Twelfth Night Act 3, Scene 4:

Go, Sir Andrew; scout me for him at the corner of the orchard, like a bum-baily; so soon as ever thou seest him, draw; and as thou draw’st, swear horrible.

A bum-baily was a ‘bum-bailiff’, a debt-collector, so called because his job was to pursue debtors very closely — figuratively close to their bums.

The same word has been used in the USA since the early 19th century for a vagrant, loafer, sponger. This usage might have come from a 16th century Scottish meaning of a dirty or lazy person but is more likely to have come from British English bummer, also a mid-19th century term for a loafer.

There is another 3-letter word which might be even more indecorous. Apart from being a term for a donkey, it is a popular American term for that portion of us upon which we sit. American TV films and serials seem to have an awful lot of ‘kick ass’ and ‘get your ass outa here’. Some of us find this not only boring but also verging on offensive, as the word means anus.

Along with the British equivalent, arse, it comes from Old English ears which became ars, ers in Middle English. Ars is defined in a scholarly dictionary of Middle English as ‘arse, hinder parts, anus’. Are we to consider these words rude or obscene?

At one time, they were part of everyday speech but the dictionary makers of the 18th century decided on our behalf which ones were rude. However, writers such as Chaucer and Shakespeare were not offended by them. Nor did they deny their readers a bit of fun.

Chaucer narrates a little incident in ‘The Miller's Tale’, where a gentleman asks a lady to lean out of the window so that he might kiss her. In the darkness of the night, he is unaware that she proffers her buttocks, not her face.

The wyndow she undoth, and that in haste,
‘Have do,’ quod she, ‘com of, and speed the faste,
Lest that oure neigheboures thee espied.’
This Absolon gan wype his mouth ful drie,
Derk was the nyght as pich, or as the cole,
And at the wyndow out she putte hir hole,
And Absolon, hym fil no bet ne wers [i.e. he did not know what was going on].
But with his mouthe he kiste hir naked ers [arse]
Ful savourly, er he were war of this. [before he was aware of this]
Abak he stirre, and thoughte it was amyss,
For wel he wiste a woman hath no berd [beard].
He felte a thinge al rough and long yherd [haired]
... ‘A berd! A berd!’ [a beard! a trick!] quod hende [said helpful] Nicholas...
... And Absolon hath kist her nether ye [lower eye].

The only thing I can say in defence of including this disgusting tale is that I met an 8-year-old some years ago who thought it was highly amusing. Neither he nor his mother were offended. Nor was the lad corrupted. But he didn’t go to the school I’ve already mentioned. That librarian would have banned Chaucer.

Meanwhile, spare a thought for people whose surname is Sidebottom. There’s really no need to pronounce it as Siddy Bott AM. It simply indicates that their ancestors came from the side bottom, the long vale. Nothing to be embarrassed about!

© Copyright 2005 Brian Barratt