American prison words

[homedeeth]

i watched a programme last night that featured an alaskan prison. it seems the prisoners take acception to the words Punk and Bitch which would result in retaliation. The words don't mean take the same meaning in England so why in America? Do the words have some historical connection?

[mi-mi]

Punk is related to someone who are soft and not a tough guy. To call someone a punk and a bitch then you are really saying that the person is a big softy who will not fight back or, it could be used as reverse psychology to get the individual to do something they wish not to do. At the end of it you still would not want anyone calling you names.

[fredpuli47]

Bitch is still as bad in America as it was once in England. You should have seen the look on an American , woman, tourist's face when I shouted 'You stupid bitch!' at my errant female dog in Cambridge once ! LOL. It was formerly very offensive in England . Grose's 'Glossary of the Vulgar Tongue' second edition (1788) says of it : The most offensive appellation that can be given to an English woman, even more provoking than that of whore, as may be gathered from the regular Billingsgate or St Giles's answer ' I may be a whore, but can't be a bitch' '. As Billingsgate was the fish market famous for the bad language of the fishwives, that statement tells us just how bad 'bitch' was. In an American prison, it may be especially offensive when applied to a man.

[fredpuli47]

The Oxford English Dictionary gives ' soft crumbly wood , rotten by fungi' as the original, primary, meaning of 'punk' .In the C16 it had also meant a prostitute.However, the Dictionary also notes that, in America, punk means ' a person of no account, a worthless fellow, a petty criminal, a young hooligan' or 'a passive male homosexual'. Take your pick !

[mallam]

This makes 'fishwife' a meta-insult, doesn't it? Shouldnt that make it worse?

Did you somehow remove my question on the Law forum? If not. any idea who did, or why? I did apologise for posting it there, but pointed out that that was no more absurd than the place where the original qn on Roman numerals had been posted, and I thought your own field was the best place to attract your attention. Did you not want it attracted? People do use this device, you know, because of the way the design of this stupid site makes it pointless to answer any qun that is not ridiculously recent.I did say I did not for a moment wish to suggest that it was illegal to use j or u in Latin!

What I asked was whether I might take it that my recent posts there had succeeded in putting you straight on that, and/or that you would respond to my query re the provenance of your hypothesis about finger-counting.

Here is the thread:
http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Arts-and-Literature/Books-and-Authors/Question810446.html