While both buck naked And bare butt used to describe someone completely naked, buck naked is the older of the pair. bare butt much newer and likely to be used because butt there is a long history of mentioning one’s butt.
Sometimes, our dictionaries have to put the childish things aside, ignoring the crowd-pleasing aspects of lexicology (such as establishing the exact time at which the past participle form of verb completes its change of function and can be properly described as an adjective), to focus on the unsightly but necessary aspects of word arrangement.
Therefore. When describing a person completely naked, should one use buck naked or bare butt?
Origins of ‘Buck Naked’ vs. ‘Butt Naked’
Look at the origin of which word to reserve nude and you’ll find more schools of thought than you’ll find at a joint conference on Digital Humanities and American Studies. Well, not really, but there are some theories. Some people think that the original is buttbased on that word that has been used to refer to a person’s buttocks since the 17th century, and that Bucket is a euphemism. Others feel that Bucket refers to buckskin (the skin of a stag, an animal commonly found in the nude), or it derives from the word’s meaning “an American man of Indian descent or African-American” (this meaning of Bucket considered offensive).
We define both buck naked And bare butt is “totally naked” and makes one synonymous with the other in the definition. bare butt significantly newer, however; Our earliest evidence of it is from the late 1960s, and the word didn’t raise much money until the 1970s.
If George T. Smith jumped out of a helicopter over Five Points wearing nothing, you can see a little story on page 9.— Hal Gulliver, Constitution of AtlantaAugust 3, 1970
Geechees were not the part of the common people who admired the emperor’s blue tunic when in fact the emperor was naked.— Verta Mae Grosvenor, red book (New York, NY), April 1973
As the Southern-born mother was telling a neighbor about the incident, a friend of Willie’s overheard the conversation going something like this: “Girl, Willie is something else. running; around that bare ass with that little girl on the street.” — Ron Suber, Pittsburgh ExpressApril 24, 1976
Our earliest recorded use of buck naked to about four decades earlier bare butt. None of the citations we have from our teens or twenties seem to support the etymological theories above.
“Well,” said the other, “it’s gone. ‘I visited a house today and I went to the bathroom and’ opened the door—locked it—and there was a woman sitting in the bathtub, naked.”— Arizona Champion (Flagstaff, AZ ), 19 years old December 1919
Minnie Smith heard a commotion in the house and ran out of her room, and according to the office, she was naked.— Dothan’s Eagle (Dothan, AL), January 9, 1922
I’ve never known a dog that could shed as much hair as that one shedding on my suit and not being left unattended, but after that dog stood up, it still seemed to have almost as much hair on its body. feathers on my suit.— Table of Contents-Journals (Greenwood, SC), April 12, 1928
Which right?
Both buck naked And bare butt is a kind of informal English; You have no reason to use writing for school or most types of work. Bucket is the older of the two, but, given the register of languages in which such words are commonly found, you should really just choose the word that gives you the most pleasure.
Categories: Usage Notes
Source: vothisaucamau.edu.vn
