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How is "son of a gun" an insult?
from BeatTakeshi@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world on 14 Sep 21:43
https://lemmy.world/post/19776430

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eezeebee@lemmy.ca on 14 Sep 21:45 next collapse

Something about taking prostitutes on voyages across the sea in the olden days. You’d romance her under the cannons and the bastard child would be a “son of a gun”. I don’t remember where I learned this so feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

Edit: I looked it up and got some details wrong, but pretty close

solidgrue@lemmy.world on 14 Sep 21:49 next collapse

If you’re wrong then I don’t wanna be right.

SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 14 Sep 21:58 next collapse

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_a_gun

The phrase potentially has its origin in a Royal Navy direction that pregnant women aboard smaller naval vessels give birth in the space between the broadside guns, in order to keep the gangways and crew decks clear. Admiral William Henry Smyth wrote in his 1867 book, The Sailor’s Word-Book: “Son of a gun, an epithet conveying contempt in a slight degree, and originally applied to boys born afloat, when women were permitted to accompany their husbands to sea; one admiral declared he literally was thus cradled, under the breast of a gun-carriage.”

Checks out. Very interesting.

Since its naval, Jimmy Buffett comes to mind.

Son of a son of a gun.

EDIT: too much time was spent on this

itsathursday@lemmy.world on 14 Sep 22:00 next collapse

I always thought “gun” was a replacement for “bitch” and was a way of saying it without saying it.

bamfic@lemmy.world on 15 Sep 01:32 collapse

Minced oath

NegativeLookBehind@lemmy.world on 14 Sep 22:09 collapse

I long to fornicate with many a sea bound trollop, under the blazing fire of a worthy vessels’ cannons

Zerlyna@lemmy.world on 14 Sep 21:56 next collapse

First I heard of that.

Drusas@fedia.io on 14 Sep 22:07 next collapse

I've never heard it used as an insult, more as a very mild expletive.

Khrux@ttrpg.network on 15 Sep 03:30 collapse

I thought the same. I assumed it was just people censoring themselves when they wanted to say son of a bitch in front a child, or anyone else who it’s taboo to swear in front of.

HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com on 14 Sep 23:32 next collapse

I have never heard it used as an insult.

Kolanaki@yiffit.net on 14 Sep 23:37 next collapse

I said “Maaaaan… My dad’s not a firearm!” And I threw it on the ground!

kmartburrito@lemmy.world on 15 Sep 00:02 collapse

SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 15 Sep 00:06 collapse

He’s got that look because the loaded gun with the safety off that he just threw on the ground triggered and shot his dad.

palebluethought@lemmy.world on 15 Sep 00:09 next collapse

I’m sure some parents use it as a substitute to avoid saying “son of a bitch” in front of their kids, if that helps

TrickDacy@lemmy.world on 15 Sep 03:09 next collapse

It’s just a softened version of “son of a bitch” but I agree with others, never heard of it as an insult

spiffy_spaceman@lemmy.world on 15 Sep 13:40 collapse

I’ve heard an old man use it this way a long time ago in the west. You would only hear it from someone who’s very old or thinks they’re a polite cowboy.

TrickDacy@lemmy.world on 15 Sep 15:29 next collapse

Southerners use it in a very endearing way that is hard to describe. Only ever in a funny and harmless way, to my knowledge

monsterpiece42@reddthat.com on 16 Sep 19:03 collapse

They use it similar to “rascal”

TrickDacy@lemmy.world on 16 Sep 20:40 collapse

Exactly

some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org on 15 Sep 17:16 collapse

I heard it in the south. Tennessee.

njm1314@lemmy.world on 15 Sep 03:13 next collapse

It’s not

Johanno@feddit.org on 15 Sep 14:09 next collapse

If you are American, no. If you are from a civilised country, yes.

Twitches@lemm.ee on 15 Sep 19:34 collapse

You got us, you son of a gun!

problematicPanther@lemmy.world on 16 Sep 07:02 next collapse

Smbc did a comic on this!

www.smbc-comics.com/comic/sob

BlitzoTheOisSilent@lemmy.world on 16 Sep 21:04 collapse

Fun fact: The Navy uses the affirmative “aye” or “aye aye” as opposed to “roger” like the Army/Air Force/etc because of similar slang origins. Basically, sailors used to use the word “roger” to mean “fuck,” both as an insult and as a way to identify women they had been with while in port.

“Yeah, I rogered her last night at the tavern,” kind of thing. But as sailors began to respond to officers using “Roger that (fuck that),” the Navy came down and made “aye aye” the official affirmative response for their personnel.

And even then, “aye” is simply a “I understand” whereas “aye aye,” means “I understand and will carry out X.”

The US Navy also launched an investigative unit during the 1800s (I wanna say the 1880s?) to find homosexual sailors and kick them out of the Navy. The unit only lasted a couple of years before being shut down, as the only people volunteering for the unit were homosexual sailors. 😆

snausagesinablanket@lemmy.world on 16 Sep 21:53 collapse

We had a similar situation at a hospital IT department I worked in about 10 years ago. We had been given a grant for Computers on portable platforms so Nurses could take the computer with them and update records as they needed live and during the moment. The acronym they came up with to describe them was COW aka Computers On Wheels. Someone got insulted about this and I am thinking it was because this hospital is in a dairy farming area and some poor farmers daughter got hurt by it somehow?? So the IT department was told to called them WOW from that day on aka Workstations on Wheels. So trivial but yet so controversial and time wasted was the biggest issue for us as we had to go around and pull the names off and put all new labels on them for inventory. So instead of COW-01 and so forth ,it was WOW-01 and so on.

MIDItheKID@lemmy.world on 17 Sep 02:38 collapse

Good lord. I worked in hospital IT for about 6 years and I absolutely hated WOWs. By far my least favorite thing to work on. I spent too many hours sitting on the floor swapping batteries out of those things.

Funny story it reminded me of though is that the Hospital I worked at was in a city starting with the letter S. So the acronym for the hospital was SH. So all of IT was referred to as IS (Information services) because we didn’t want to be the SHIT department.

FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org on 16 Sep 19:38 collapse

It’s not?