Timeline for Etymology/Origin behind using "bitching" in a positive sense
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
11 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 7, 2015 at 13:52 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | ...I get free access to OED V3 through my (UK) library card number. Full price is £240 a year - but it is the definitive dictionary for English, and you can't even buy it as dead trees any more. Last I knew, the paper edition V2 used to be £750, but even at that price it was costing them money to produce it. I think there might be a way to access OED V1 online, but only as scanned images, not indexed searchable text. | |
| Jun 7, 2015 at 13:34 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | The uncertainty is referenced by etymonline: bitched in this sense seems to echo Middle English bicched "cursed, bad," a general term of opprobrium (as in Chaucer's bicched bones "unlucky dice"), which despite the hesitation of OED, seems to be a derivative of bitch (noun). See also A Concise of Middle English Bicched, pp. a word of doubtful meaning, applied to the basilisk, and to bones used for dice, NED, CM, C3; byched, MD; bichede, NED. | |
| Jun 7, 2015 at 2:47 | comment | added | Shisa | @FumbleFingers I am not able to find etymologies in the non-paid online version of oxford or elsewhere online. Is this available anywhere outside a paywall? | |
| Jun 6, 2015 at 14:44 | vote | accept | Shisa | ||
| May 31, 2015 at 18:13 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | OED lists this usage under the same entry as the earlier senses to hang back and to bungle, first recorded 1777 and 1823 respectively. Origin uncertain, but may derive from the female dog noun. Or, by implication, may not. | |
| May 31, 2015 at 9:21 | answer | added | Sven Yargs | timeline score: 2 | |
| May 30, 2015 at 20:01 | comment | added | Hot Licks | This is how we got "cool" from "hot", etc. It's just natural for slang to resort to an opposite of an over-used term. | |
| May 30, 2015 at 18:40 | answer | added | 16807 | timeline score: 0 | |
| Jul 11, 2014 at 12:49 | comment | added | Robusto | "Bad is the new good." In slang's search for new and better in-group intensifiers, negative terms are often appropriated and spun in the other direction. Cf. killer, sick, wicked, and even bad. | |
| Jul 11, 2014 at 12:15 | answer | added | user66974 | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jul 11, 2014 at 11:00 | history | asked | Shisa | CC BY-SA 3.0 |