“1707年”这个短语直接出现,但实际上早在更早时期就已存在,古诺尔斯语中有bikkju-sonr。1918年起,简化形式SOB开始流行;而sumbitch这一形式则在1969年被书面记录下来。
Abide þou þef malicious!
Biche-sone þou drawest amis
þou schalt abigge it ywis!
["Of Arthour & of Merlin," c. 1330]
你这恶意之人!
你这畜生,真是误入歧途
你一定会为此付出代价!
[《亚瑟王与梅林》,约公元1330年]
据说,“大约从18世纪中期到20世纪中期,这可能是美国最常见的粗俗语”[Rawson]。
Our maid-of-all-work in that department [indecency] is son-of-a-bitch, which seems as pale and ineffectual to a Slav or a Latin as fudge does to us. There is simply no lift in it, no shock, no sis-boom-ah. The dumbest policeman in Palermo thinks of a dozen better ones between breakfast and the noon whistle. [H.L. Mencken, "The American Language," 4th ed., 1936, p.317-8]
在那个领域(低俗语)中,我们的全能女仆就是son-of-a-bitch,对于斯拉夫人或拉丁人来说,这个词听起来就像我们听到fudge一样苍白无力,毫无冲击力,缺乏震撼感。即使是巴勒莫最笨的警察,在早餐和中午鸣笛之间也能想出十个更好的。[H.L. Mencken,《美国语言》,第4版,1936年,第317-318页]
在其他地方,门肯还抱怨美国的脏话词汇太过平淡,他指出,那个被淡化的形式son-of-a-gun“缺乏力度,以至于我们中的意大利人把它当作对美国人的讽刺称呼:他们叫他la sanemagogna,借此表达他们对他在他们引以为豪的艺术上的落后的蔑视。”
It was in 1934 also that the New York Daily News, with commendable frankness, in reporting a hearing in Washington at which Senator Huey P. Long featured, forsook the old-time dashes and abbreviations and printed the complete epithet "son of a bitch." [Stanley Walker, "City Editor," 1934]
1934年,《纽约日报》以令人称道的坦率报道了华盛顿的一场听证会,参议员休伊·P·朗是主要人物,该报摒弃了老式的破折号和缩写,完整地印出了“son of a bitch”这个词。[斯坦利·沃克,《城市编辑》,1934年]