Depends who’s driving the van.
Wow—you guy have been busy over the weekend! I think Peace’s derivation sounds the most on-target. Anything more on dykes? I recall being startled a few years back during the Midwestern floods when the news reported that “the water was being held back from one town by two large dikes.” I hope they at least got a medal afterwards!
Nemo—Doesn’t it slay you when they think “Wherefore art thou, Romeo?” means “Where are you?”
More slang history: the term “flapper,” which is usually associated with 1920s Bright Young Things, actually goes back to c1900 and meant “a fluttery, butterfly-like girl.”
Lamia, the origin of the word does not seem to be known. However, that Celtic reference is close enough for me. As a matter of fact, take a look at:
http://www.fortunecity.com/village/birdcage/279/dyke.html
"Possibly derived from Boudicca (Bou-dyke-ah),
a Celtic queen who organized a revolt
against the Roman Empire in 67 A.D.,
this empowered woman was seen as a threat to
the power structure. Later, as its connotation
changed to refer to lesbians, a harsh stigma
remained. In order to take the punch out of the
word, Dyke has been reclaimed by some
lesbians. Even today, even at Vassar,
said in a hurtful manner, it can
be a painful word.
Main Entry: 2dyke
Pronunciation: 'dIk
Function: noun
Etymology: origin unknown
Date: circa 1942
: LESBIAN -- often used disparagingly
- dykey /'dI-kE/ adjective"Eve said
Actually, according to Lighter, it can be traced to at least 1889 in a slang dictionary, where it says “flippers, flappers, very young girls trained to vice.”
And, you are right, that around 1900, it was simply used sometimes in reference to young girls.
peace said
. I couldn’t find this. Source?
I think that the facts will support andygirl’s assertion - "Anyway, from my slang dictionary: Origin uncertain and much debated; perhaps from a shortening of morphodyke, dialectal and substandard pronunciation of “hermaphrodite,”
From American Speech 1937," ** morphodyte, morphadyke, sb., the folk-term for hermaphrodite**, usually applied to a horse, but sometimes to a human being. Nebraska and North Carolina."
And, in bibliophages’ link, they correctly said that the term bulldyke/bulldike goes back in print to about 1920. And, amazingly, it was used in many print sources by blacks at that time.
For those of the Iceni/Celtic school, praytell how did the reference fail to appear in print in England since the first century? The term would have been in print before 1920 in England, if that were the source.
Perhaps by some Vassar or Wellesley girls grabbing Boudicca’s name, applying some folk etymology, and hurling it at some of their less-popular sisters?
I do not subscribe to the Boudicca theory, but you asked how the name could have jumped 19 centuries. Bou is a Greek prefix for “bull” (e.g., Alexander’s “bull headed” horse, Boukephalos). Some classically ill-trained smart-alecs could easily have coined a term on their own.
Again, I find peace’s research much more plausible. However, the emphasis on the classics in universities and colleges through the nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries did create a number of strange neologisms (most of which, fortunately, faded with the graduation of the class that coined them).
Doesn’t anybody remember the story of the little Dutch boy that put his finger in the hole in the dike to save the village? I read it quite a few years ago.