| 词组 | bosom |
| 释义 | bosom Copperud is especially interested in this word, treating it briefly in 1970 but in extenso in 1964 and 1980. From his entries in 1970 and 1980—bosom(s)—it is not certain whether he is pinning the labels euphemism and nice-Nellyism on the singular bosom or the plural bosoms when it refers to a woman's breasts, or both. But what seems to have drawn his attention is this example: • ... reaching a memorable peak of something or other at the end of the first act, when he causes his heroine to tear the false bosoms from a rival's dress and fling them triumphantly across the stage —Wol-cott Gibbs, New Yorker, 3 Nov. 1956 Whether Gibbs considered falsies too slangy for his review we'll never know, but prudishness does not seem to be the intent here. The use of bosom, usually but not always in the plural, may have started as a euphemism. It sounds Victorian, but we have no evidence of its use before 1924 and no very frequent evidence until the 1950s. It is apparently of American origin. • ... without concealing her withered naked bosoms —Raymond Paton, The Autobiography of a Blackguard, 1924 • After slipping a quilted housecoat over her broad, erect shoulders, pinning it across her ample bosoms —Viola Goode Liddell, Georgia Rev., Fall 1950 • ... the 1917 "Bathers by a River," in which the women's bosoms seem to have been drawn with a compass —Janet Flanner, New Yorker, 22 Dec. 1951 • ... leaped like a damp naiad from behind the shower curtain, into my arms. Her dewy bosoms, none too firm, crushed into my shirt front —John Barth, The Floating Opera, 1956 • ... the future Congresswoman with bosoms which spoke of butter, milk, carnal abundance —Norman Mailer, Harper's, March 1971 • ... likes to perform clad only in shorts with electrical tape and shaving cream on her bosoms —People, 9 Feb. 1981 Our only British evidence comes from an interview with a British actress of considerable residence in the U.S.: • And I thought, 'Oh my God, my bosoms are being seen....' —Jacqueline Bisset, quoted in Cosmopolitan (London), October 1974 This no longer appears to be a real euphemism anyway. It sometimes seems to be chosen because it sounds faintly prudish and is seemingly intended to have a lightening effect. It does not seem to be used in prose that is intended to be either stately or erotic. |
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