Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Bougre, Bugger, Bum

So, I'm reading Gonick's Cartoon History of the Universe, book III. On page 217 he offers this bit of wisdom regarding word origins:

The Cathar sect originated in the Balkans, and so they were also known as the Bulgars or Bougres.

The Cathars believed that heaven was the spiritual realm created by God, and earth the physical realm created by the devil. So the Bulgars felt that humanity's ultimate goal was to shed our material bodies and become purely spiritual. As a result, they practiced birth control, (and not just in the form of Hildegard Von Bingen's herbal concoctions). No, the Bougres practiced a variety of sexual techniques (and positions) to avoid contraception (and thus propagation of the material world)... including anal sex.
"This is how the word Bougre - english 'Bugger' - came to mean someone whose, er, practices were, um, backwards..."
This wisdom of his comes complete with a little drawing of a Bougre woman, rubbing her sore bottom as her man stands by talking about how they're going to heaven now. Most illuminating. It sounds a little goofy, but he's got an extensive bibliography, and have yet to find anything wrong in the 2.5 books of his I've read so far (and it's all well written, provided you can get past the way he draws noses) so I'm inclined to trust him.

Makes me wonder if the word "Bum" is similarly referencing the fact the homeless have little choice but to take it up the ass every day.

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