On Butts

[Elliott A Moreton]

	Whenever I go on a radio call-in show, there is one query I am
absolutely guaranteed to get.  The caller is usually male, usually
middle-aged, and usually calling from a car phone, and the question on
his mind is, "Why do you *butt* people with your *head*?"
	For many years, I had a stock answer loaded, charged, and
primed for firing on a moment's notice: "Because it feels so good when
I stop".  KAPOW!  But then I would have to go on and admit to my
disappointed, er, target that I didn't know.  The question didn't seem
worth researching.
	But I have had a change of heart.  I have met too many
middle-aged American men with car phones.  They do not tend to ask
idle questions, and that *that many* of them should all be fascinated
by the *same* idle question beggars belief.  They must need this
information for important national-security reasons.
	And so, here is an introduction to _butt_, pieced together
from friendly (British) intelligence sources.  I won't ask what yall
need it for, but I'm confident it will be used to make the world a
happier place.
 
                            *   *   *
 
	The _Oxford English Dictionary_  (my only source)
distinguishes fourteen main noun meanings, most with several subheads,
and two verbs.  The history of _butt_ is very confused:  "of obscure
origin", "of obscure etymology", "of uncertain derivation", "origin
unknown", "perhaps", "?" keep coming up.  Many of the senses seem to
have interbred, making the bloodlines unclear.  About half of them
have variant pronuciations as "put" or "putt".
	The sixteen OED definitions can be divided into eight main
families of (apparently) historically and semantically related
meanings:  I. 'End",  II. 'Protrusion', III. 'Mound' (with many
meanings in each), IV. 'Cask', V. 'Flatfish', VI. 'Basket',
VII. 'Bundle', VIII. 'Cart' (one meaning each, with a bonus in VIII). 
	I.  'End' is very general:  'The thicker end of anything',
'buttock', 'tree trunk', 'end of plank', 'fag-end of a cigarette',
'exposed coal surface at right angle to the coal face', 'the thicker
or hinder part of a hide, sole-leather'.  From this last comes,
apparently, 'butt-knife used by shoemakers'.  'End' embraces also
'terminal point', 'boundary marker', and from that 'practice target'
-- an archery butt.  Hence the butt of a joke, the poor sap standing
downrange from a large-bore wit.  The OED gives cognates in North and
West Germanic and in the western Romance languages; the Romance can't
be traced back to Latin.  Often this means borrowing by Romance of an
originally Germanic word (e.g., "fresh", "blank", "blue").  (The lack
of non-Germanic cognates might mean that the Germanic tribes got this
from non-Indo-European neighbors (as they did with "north", "south",
"east", "west"), but I don't know.)  The verb _butt_ -- 'to mark a
boundary', 'to abut', 'to join, or be joined, end to end' -- is
"partly" from this noun, and "partly" from the verb _abut_ -- which
itself goes back to two Old French verbs, both of them from the same
source.  Is it related to Fr. _bout_ 'end, small remaining part'?  The
authorities are undecided.
	Under II.  'Protrusion' I have included the other verb _butt_
'to strike or push, usually with the head', 'to project, jut'.  OED
says this gives us the noun 'a shove with the head or horns' and 'a
stroke in fencing'; it may also be the parent of the noun 'headland,
promontory' (as in the Butt of Lewis).  From Old French _boter_ or
_buter_ (now _bouter_) 'to push'.
	III. 'Mound' covers 'mound, hillock' and 'rig, mound between
furrows in a field', both of which are "perhaps" from Fr. _butte_
'mound, hillock'.  The 'furrow' definition might, however, be from
Fr. _bout_ 'end, small remaining part', as it is often applied
specifically to rigs that are cut short by an irregularity in the
field boundary.
	IV. 'Cask' is the famous butt of malmsey in which, according
to Tudor legend, the evil Richard III (not yet king) drowned his
no-good brother George, Duke of Clarence.  OED quotations include an
Act of Parliament from Richard's first year on the throne, 1 Rich. III
c. 13, which complains of the dishonesty of the "merchant strangers"
who have lately reduced the standard butt of malmsey from six or seven
score gallons to five score eight.  (Must have had trouble packing
Clarence in.)  This word can't be traced back any further than Late
Latin _butta_ or _buttis_, 'cask', not a particularly Latin-looking 
word.  
	V. 'Flatfish'.  Scandinavian and West Germanic cognates;
possibly related to meaning I "from the blunt shape of the head".
	VI.  'Basket' for catching fish.  "Origin unknown".
	VII.  'Bundle', perhaps from Fr. _botte_ 'bundle'.
	VIII.  'Cart', specifically, a rude two-wheeled cart used in
farming, no etymology given.
 
	And what do you suppose was, according to a quotation from
1796, the name for the *capacity* of such a cart?
	Hint:  It equals six seams.