In a piece for Slate, William Saletan writes:
Half an hour later, Greg Pence, a sleepy-eyed philosopher from the University of Alabama, administers a 15-minute bitch-slap to biotech critics.I've never understood this expression, "bitch-slap." It seems ambiguous between a) slap the way a bitch would; and b) slap someone the way you (typically) slap a bitch. Before I attended to the ambiguity, I had always read it as b). b), I think, is more offensive than a), since b) seems to imply some sort of approval for slapping women, whereas a) is more along the lines of you-throw-like-a-girl sexism - offensive, but not as bad. But neither seems very polite. And yet this phrase has somehow managed to make its way into mainstream speech over the last few years. Am I simply being a humourless dork here, or is there something a bit odd about the popularity of the phrase? Have I misunderstood it? And which is the more natural reading, a) or b)?
Update: OK, I asked my students. None of them found anything offensive about the expression. I pointed out that on either possible interpretation it seemed awfully offensive. One said, "I just never thought about it." They seemed to think that it may have originally been offensive, but that so much time (!) had gone by (these are 18 or 19 year olds) that it wasn't any longer. One student claimed the same thing had happened with the expression, "rule of thumb", but a little googling suggests that that might not be a great example.
So there you go. Kids these days . . .
Posted by Chris at April 4, 2005 08:00 AMi've always thought it was (b). i actually never thought of (a). i think both are pretty equally offensive. (a) not only implies "throw-like-a-girl sexism", but also uses the word "bitch" as a stand-in for "girl" or "woman"
but i share in your puzzlement at how this term went mainstream. i get the sense that saletan was trying to be hip by using the term. which begs the question how a term like "bitch slap" became hip
Posted by: upyernoz at April 4, 2005 09:58 AMPresented, without comment, the following relevant Josh Marshall links:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_15.php#003295
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003312
Hope that helps.
Posted by: Daniel Geffen at April 4, 2005 11:51 AMi don't think it does. it doesn't clear up the meaning of the phrase at all. it just shows that people other than saletan have used it (which i think we knew anyway)
Posted by: upyernoz at April 4, 2005 01:53 PMDaniel,
Oh yeah, I remember those posts now. I think Marshall was self-consciously using the phrase. I don't think Saletan was.
I'm not trying to be the language police here, or to pick on Saletan in particular. I'm just curious how this thing went mainstream.
And if I don't get an answer to this question, I'm going to . . . Aw, forget it. The joke is too obvious, even for me.
Posted by: Chris at April 4, 2005 02:01 PMUpyernoz: actually, upon further review, you are correct. Marshall's use of the word doesn't fully explain the connotations. Reeling from this realization, I foolishly checked out urbandictionary.com, which only served to further confuse the matter. I'll save you a visit to that awful, awful site and just give you a brief review: there are partisans of both of Chris's possible definitions. Some "contributors" suggest it means to hit like a girl (in contradistinction to "pimp slap"), while others give definitions like this one, which echoes Saletan's and Marshall's usage (and implicitly seems to suggest definition "b":
Open handed strike delivered to people of far inferior physical size or strength to show they are not worthy of the time it takes to bunch up a fist and hit hard when a simple slap will do.Lord knows why this is considered acceptable. Posted by: Daniel Geffen at April 4, 2005 04:44 PM
I find it hard to believe that not everyone thinks (b) is the obvious candidate for the vulgar meaning of the phrase.
That's my two sense.
Posted by: Paul at April 4, 2005 07:41 PMcents. cents.
Posted by: Paul at April 4, 2005 07:43 PMA "bitch slap" as far as I knew was an unofficial Street Fighter II term. Specifically for Honda's jumping medium punch which always looked like he was pulling it.
Posted by: peter at April 5, 2005 07:11 AM