It’s not really common knowledge, but the term “scumbag” (which is now considered fairly mild) used to mean “used condom,” and “scum” used to be a vulgar slang term for semen. So a few questions: when did “scum” stop meaning semen? When did “cum” supplant it, and is that word derived from “scum” or does it have a separate genesis?
“cum” comes from the word “come”; etymologically speaking, it is in fact the same word, only it has come to be spelt differently in this context (much like “borne” being spelt “born” in the specific context of birth).
Also, in case you are under the impression that “scum” originally meant semen before it acquired a meaning of liquid impurities and so on, that is incorrect; it had this latter meaning first, just as still does, with its usage as slang for “semen” coming about later, in an understandable fashion.
Etymonline on cum.
And here’s the entry on scum.
“Scumbag” meaning condom goes back to 1967. “Cum” meaning semen goes back to the 1920s. No word on when “scum” first meant “semen,” though.
It definitely predates 1967. My mother tells a story about when we still lived in Brooklyn (pre-1967) and my brother (maybe 10 years old) and his friend saw a used condom floating in the water while they were on a Staten Island ferry. His friend asked what it was. My mother interceded saying it was a Coney Island Whitefish (apparently a euphemism). My brother shouts out for all to hear, “No, mom, that’s a scumbag!”.
Sorry. I should have said, the first recording of scumbag was 1967. The cite doesn’t give a source, but this usually means (except in the cases where an author invents a neologism in print) that the word had existed for some time prior to then.
My educated guess is that the term “scumbag,” to mean a dispicable person, almost certainly came before the condom/used condom meaning.
I can find a *ca.*1952 cite usingGoogle Books
I’d say it certainly came after; for a condom it’s purely descriptive, and for a person it’s not doing anything but being evocative of a bag of scum.
Ah, but there’s the problem. Find me a use of scum=cum from at least the 1950s or 1960s. Scum pretty much never meant cum.
Since douchebag was used around WWII to mean a dispicable person, it’s not hard to envision people who had been using scum to mean a dispicable person expand that to scumbag.
1963, according to this cite. I wouldn’t have guessed - considering the term’s current popularity, I could have sworn it was a 90s invention. Live and learn.