| 词组 | bugger |
| 释义 | bugger Copperud 1970, 1980 and Evans 1957 warn against the unsavory associations of this word. Their comments appear to be dated, in view of the greater frankness in print that has characterized the past quarter century or so. 1. The semi-vulgarity of extended uses of the noun depends upon the user's or hearer's knowledge of the original sense. It is used of persons as a generalized term of abuse: • The technically accomplished buggers are two a penny in any period —John Fowles, The Collector, 1963 • The sly old bugger, Mai thought —Max Braithwaite, À Privilege and a Pleasure, 1973 • Tidmarsh said, "I knew some bugger on a terminal had been tying up more free time this year. I should have goddamn known it would be your terminal." —Micheal Z. Lewin, Hard Line, 1982 But more frequently—and especially in American English—it is used in a much milder sense. This milder sense is often signaled by a down-toning adjective like poor: • I think Harry might still be trying, poor bugger — John Lennon, quoted in Playboy, January 1981 • My father was a bull, a tough bugger, y'know — James Caan, quoted in Cleo, April 1975 • They've gotten a lot of praise for their well-crafted albums—and the shrewd buggers make great singles, too —Michael Musto, US, 26 Mar. 1984 In British English bugger is mildly pejorative when combined with silly: • ... disdain for silly buggers who get trapped into marriage —Martin Amis, The Listener, 11 Apr. 1974 When silly bugger is combined with play, it means "to behave or act foolishly": • He's encouraging Michael Foot and Wedgie Benn to play silly buggers, as he puts it, so that when unemployment passes the 3,000,000 mark in 18 months' time they will be blamed for it —Auberon Waugh, Private Eye, 2 May 1975 When used in British or American English of some nonhuman subject, bugger is not particularly vulgar. Its pejorativeness is usually indicated by the context: • ... never felt squeamish until she was asked to pick up a spider. She hates the little buggers —Michael Small, People, 12 Nov. 1984 • ... I had plans for this car. I was looking forward to flashing around Las Vegas in the bugger —Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, 1972 • Competition? "It's going to be a tough bugger "—Bill Rodgers, quoted by Bob Wischnia, Runners World, June 1981 • If you think I'm going to bowl into a wind like this bugger after the season's work I've done you can bloody think again because I shan't —Fred True-man, quoted in John Arlott, Fred: Portrait of a Fast Bowler, 1971 • Zapping ... is what we in the shadowy world of VCR owners do to commercials. We push the fast-forward button right through the buggers —Ellen Goodman, quoted by William Safire, N.Y. Times Mag., 12 Feb. 1984 In British English it is used to mean "damn": • Frankly, I don't care a bugger how it works —Robert Chartham, quoted in N. Y. Times Mag., 2 Dec. 1973 • As it turns out, Dan couldn't give a bugger whether I'm there or not —Glenda Jackson, quoted in Cosmopolitan, April 1976 And in British English bugger-all means "nothing": • ... who have houses in the south of France and in the West Indies and sit around doing bugger all — Lord Carrington, quoted in N.Y. Times, 22 May 1979 • ... some people he could mention ought to watch themselves when they knew bugger-all whereof they spoke —Alan Coren, Punch, 6 Nov. 1974 2. • ... I said to my seventeen-year-old mate, 'Bugger him. We'll go off and join the army.' —a farmworker, quoted in Ronald Blythe, Akenfield, 1969 • 'Bugger philosophy!' Jerry said angrily —André P. Brink, Looking on Darkness, 1974 • 'Bugger her. She walked out on me, didn't she?' — Jean Watson, Stand in the Rain, 1965 • "I'm buggered if I'll apologize to that Yankee bastard " —John Rowe, Count Your Dead, 1968 The participial adjective—also British—means "tired out." It does not seem to be notably vulgar. • When I reached the trenches I was pretty well buggered —Raymond Gardner, The Australian, 26 Apr. 1975 Bugger about and bugger around are also British, and not greatly offensive, apparently. In the intransitive they mean "to potter around, do things ineffectually, waste time": • '... What these chaps get paid for beats me: buggering about all the time like blue-arsed flies in a bakery and never doing a stroke of honest work.' —Bruce Marshall, Vespers in Vienna, 1947 • "... What the hell do you mean by buggering about like this? .." —Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim, 1954 • ... buggering about unnecessarily in implementing the legislation —Alan Ramsey, Nation Rev. (Melbourne), 29 May 1975 • ... generally buggering around with the positions of a lot of lower ranks —C. M. Evans, Nation Rev. (Melbourne), 17 Apr. 1975 Bugger about is sometimes used transitively: • "... you get used to being buggered about a bit by head office." —Colin Watson, Kissing Covens, 1972 Bugger off— likewise British—is a bit more of a problem. Some American references call it extremely vulgar, but others call it colloquial, or slang. It means "to leave" but is usually used as an imperative, equivalent to "scram, beat it": • To people who come up and criticize me in public, I have a simple answer.... Bugger off —Kingsley Amis, quoted in Publishers Weekly, 28 Oct. 1974 • When I recovered, I said, 'Okay, bugger off then,' and I am afraid she did just that —Richard Burton, quoted in People, 15 Mar. 1982 • ... when she'd finally buggered off I gave way a bit and had a good cry —Noel Coward, Pretty Polly and Other Stories, 1965 • "Do you want me to stay with you, Daddy, till the doctor comes?" "I want you to bugger off." —Iris Murdoch, A Fairly Honourable Defeat, 1970 Finally we have bugger up meaning "to botch, bungle" (many American equivalents will quickly come to mind): • The Common Market has done wonders for fishing and buggered up everything else —Tim Goddard, quoted in Punch, 27 Mar. 1974 There seems to be, or has been, a taint of vulgarity clinging to bugger up, as this next example suggests. Note, however, that it was published quite a few years earlier than the example from Punch: • '... I hope your private investigations haven't buggered up the situation prematurely.' • The copperess looked at the varnished ceiling. 'Oh, pardon,' the Detective-sergeant said. 'It's still hard, after all these years, to remember we have ladies in the Force.' —Colin Maclnnes, Mr Love and Justice, 1960, in The London Novels of Colin Mac-Inness, 1969 All of the extended uses of bugger, noun and verb, are marked coarse slang in the OED Supplement. Longman 1984 marks most of them slang but not vulgar. Other references give varying readings; there is even a suggestion that the degree of vulgarity varies from the South to the North of England. It is difficult to judge such things from this side of the Atlantic. The examples quoted above, which are typical, seem to suggest that the terms may not be as vulgar in actual usage as the reference books say they are. The only sense—the "little bugger"—that is very common in the U.S. is not vulgar here. |
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