Re: USAGE Re: [CONLANG] Bunty.

ROGER MILLS wrote:
> And Rosta wrote (re bint)
>> Mildly disrespectful rather than very insulting, I'd say. Comparable
>> to _fiddle_ versus _violin_. It's a synonym of _woman_, and similar to
>> _wench_ (in being a synonym of _woman_ with different sociolinguistic
>> value), and unlike innumerably many other derogatory words for women
>> that add some further element of meaning (sexual laxity, garrulity,
>> irascibility, etc.). Actually though, I might be wrong, for upon
>> further introspection I conclude that it means 'foreign (nonanglo)
>> woman'; I would never talk about a 'Yorkshire bint' or a 'Texas bint',
>> but I would call my missus an 'Eyetie bint'. However, neither Dennis
>> the repressed serf nor the OED agree with me on this.
>>
> I'g duess, then, that the word came via military slang, from all those
> years in India (Muslim/Urdu speaking areas?) abd/or the mid-east.
>
Or just from Anglo-Indian jargon?

I was familiar with the word as a school kid in the 1950s here in
Britain. It was part our schoolboy jargon (it was an all boys school)
and there was no awareness that the word was foreign - I learnt that later.

It's not a word I'd normally use now - it seems rather dated to me - but
I'd not find it particularly odd if I heard it. As far as I remember,
we'd use the word for youngish (nubile) females, say in their teens or
twenties, maybe early thirties. Once a woman reached middle age she was
definitely, to us school boys, a biddy, not a bint   ;)

Expressions like 'Yorkshire bint' or a 'Texas bint' do not seem odd to
me, as long as they're used when _referring_ to individuals (i.e. in the
3rd person). My own recollection is that to use 'bint' when addressing a
female would have been mildly derogatory.
-------------------------------------------------

Ph. D. wrote:
 > Lars Finsen wrote:
 >>
 >> Den 20. jun. 2008 kl. 17.26 skrev Peter Collier:
 >>>
 >>> I just love 'Bintland' - it conjures up such a
 >>> marvellous mental image of some kind of theme park of 'ill repute'.
 >>
 >> I see, so the connection is that obvious.

Certainly a land populated with nubile maidens - the 'ill repute' bit
wouldn't figure very strongly, if at all, in my understanding.

 >> I thought 'bint' was rather
 >> an obscure word. At least Matthew Reilly, my latest translation
 >> victim, seems
 >> to think you need to be somewhat familiar with Arabic to recognise it.

No - just to have been brought up in the right part of the world and,
possibly, in certain generations (Is the word readily known among
teenagers in modern Britain? I don't know).

 > Well, I've never run across that word here in the United States.

So it didn't get across the Pond, I guess.

--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
Frustra fit per plura quod potest
fieri per pauciora.
[William of Ockham]

Reply