The once unpronounceable word “bloody”

The once unpronounceable word “bloody”

It is almost certain that the main event in the reception in England of the formerly unpronounceable “low” word bloody (which first turned up in texts in 1540 and, consequently, existed in colloquial speech earlier) goes back to 1914, when Eliza Dolittle, the heroine of George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion, uttered it from the stage. Nowadays, when in “public discourse,” the rich hoard of English adjectives has been reduced to the single F-word (at least so in the US), this purism of an age gone by cannot but amuse us. Obviously, times change, and we are changing with them. The original OED could not yet include the F-word, but bloody did make it into the B fascicle of the dictionary (1887), and a suggestion about the etymology of the vulgarism appeared there. Since that time, the entry has been revised, as anyone can see in the online edition of the OED, and I can add nothing of substance to it, but since I have a good database on bloody (collected for my Bibliography of English Etymology, 2009), some snippets from old publications may entertain those who have no better reading in their hours of indolence. I also have something to say about the word’s early history.

“I think the origin of this vulgar and very revolting epithet may be very satisfactorily traced.” The writer derives this word, “which is now so prevalent with the lower classes,” “from by the Blood and Wounds of our Blessed Redeemer” (1868). A somewhat similar hypothesis traced bloody to “by’r Lady.” More to the point, at the same time, Dutch bloedig “excessive; difficult,” along with the synonymous German blutig, and the obsolete English epithet woundy “hard, very difficult,” were cited. No doubt, Murray’s OED possessed all the necessary data, but the precious slips had to wait for their hour.

Outside English, almost identical words evoked no horror, and the reference to by’r Lady did not satisfy everybody. Additionally, “Celtic, Cymric, or Gaelic bloide ~ bloighd, which signifies a piece, a fragment, a bit, or the adverb ‘rather’” (1874) came up in the discussion, but this was a dead-end suggestion. l always admire the correspondents to the British and American popular press of a hundred and fifty years ago for their knowledge of English ethnography, literature, and history: quite often, their results have not been improved since that time. Several correspondents pointed out that bloody had not always been a taboo word. For instance, it was acceptable to Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), who wrote: “It grows bloody cold.” But of course, Swift is the last author to be praised for gentility, especially in his unbuttoned moments. The adverb bloodily is also old. “He swears bloodily he loves none but my daughter” (1655, cited in 1898; the OED online has a slightly earlier example: 1649).

Many authors complain that the public ignores their writings. True, it is not easy to make oneself heard. But some people who express “opinions” about word origins never noticed even the existence of the OED. Both the irascible Walter W. Skeat and the much more reserved Ernest Weekley could not conceal their surprise at such a display of ignorance. In Notes and Queries 12/VI, 1920, p. 87, Weekley mentioned this phenomenon in connection with an exchange on bloody in the Observer. The OED said that though the origin of bloody is uncertain, the word probably goes back to the habits of “young bloods” (that is, young inexperienced men). Consequently, bloody drunk would have meant “as drunk as a blood.” “There is no ground” the OED continued, “for supposing that ‘bloody’… has connection with the oath ‘— ‘s blood!’.” As regards etymology, Weekley disagreed with Murray and called the word “an intensifier of the same type as awfully, thundering, etc., as suggested by the use of intensifying prefixes of Dutch bloed and German Blut.”

Weekley seems to have been close to the truth. A fine Romance scholar, he did of course mention Middle French sanglant “bloody” and noted that the word was used as an intensive, while earlier, it may have had stronger connotations. The OED did not miss sanglant either. Later research shed more light on this French word. At present, especially important is Emil Reed’s article in Notes and Queries for December 2017, pp. 517-24. He picked up where Dominique Lagorgette left off. The word seems to have emerged and flourished in Anglo-Norman, the medieval British dialect of Old French. We don’t know whether bloody also existed so early and thus served as the model for sanglant or whether the word was a genuine Anglo-French coinage. In any case, the reference to Anglo-French seems to point to the source of our word, which may have spread to medieval German and Dutch and become part of late West-European military slang. Incidentally, the previous edition of the otherwise excellent German etymological dictionary stated that the reinforcing German prefix blut– has nothing to do with blood and is related to bloß “only.” This is another “local” etymology that should be discarded. Among others, Henry Cecil Wyld doubted a connection between (young) bloods and bloody. Eric Partridge’s statement (in his etymological dictionary) that the slang use of bloody “results naturally [!] from the violence and viscosity of blood” is a bit puzzling.

A long article on bloody appeared in the periodical American Speech 6 (1930-31, 29-35) by Robert Withington. This is his opening statement: “The horror awakened by the adjective bloody, when used as an intensive in England, has long been a source of amused surprise to the American cousins across the water, who can see no reason for it….” Withington flaunted his democratic tastes with a bit of excessive fervor when he said: “To feel a distaste for a word merely because it had been employed by a rough and uncultured part of the population years ago—and for no other reason—is carrying etymological snobbery too far.” I wonder what he would have said about our laxity today. Be that as it may, he was right that the derivation of bloody from by Our Lady is most unlikely, “for who would say ‘shut your by-Our-Lady mouth’?” Of course, no one would, but the question is about the initial source of the word. Probably at no time, would by our Lady have deteriorated into bloody, and in the early seventeenth century, even the genteel speakers (that is, not only Swift) don’t seem to have been shocked by it. Withington, like Weekley, whom he quoted at length, also refused to trace bloody to (young) bloods.

In the now defunct American periodical Verbatim, one finds an amusing exchange on bloody between Eric P. Hamp and Robert A. Fowkes. Fowkes wrote: “It is even conceivable that the bloody in bloody warm is different in origin from that in bloody fool. Possibly the word belongs to that group never to be explained because the ‘special circumstances’ mentioned by Hamp have been forgotten. If they prove to be retrievable by some as yet unforeseen method, the word will obviously shed its obscurity” (No. 2, p. 21). Both Hamp and Fowkes were first-rate linguists. Unpredictable convergences do happen in word history, but reference to them will take us nowhere. For the moment, we may probably assume that the swear word bloody antedates the habits of “young bloods” by many centuries and progressed from Anglo-Norman to English, Dutch, and German (in all of which it was translated into the languages of the natives), but whether that Anglo-Norman epithet was coined by French speakers or translated from a lost Middle English swear word remains unknown.

_{Featured image by Dr Umm via Flickr. CC BY 2.0.}

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