bitch

   This word has been applied insultingly to women since at least the fourteenth century. It presumably caused as much offence then as it does now, but it appears to be commonly used, judging by the frequency with which it occurs in novels. Perhaps the fullest commentary on its use comes in Joseph Andrews, by Henry Fielding: ‘Get out of my house, you whore.’ To which she added another name, which we do not care to stain our paper with. It was a monosyllable beginning with a b-, and indeed was the same as if she had pronounced the words ‘she-dog.’ Which term, we shall, to avoid offence, use on this occasion. ‘I can’t bear that name,’ answered Betty. ‘I will go out of your house this moment, for I will never be called “she-dog” by any mistress in England.’

   Fielding goes on to say that this word ‘is extremely disgustful to females of the lower sort’, but it was one which women of the higher sort no doubt never heard applied to themselves. ‘You shifty bitch’ is used by a father to his daughter when the former is in a rage in Women In Love, by D.H.Lawrence. ‘You tightass bitch’ is used by a man to a woman in Surfacing, by Margaret Atwood. ‘You bloody bitch’ occurs in Anthony Powell’s Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant; ‘cold bitch’ and ‘cold little bitch’ are in The Country Girls, by Edna O’Brien. Examples of insults could easily be multiplied, but intimate uses of the word also occur. In The Philanderer, by Stanley Kauffman, an American couple are in bed and chatting amiably. ‘We could walk there if we had to’, says the wife. ‘Bitch’, says the husband. She kisses him and says ‘Good night, dear’ in reply, to which he says ‘Good night, dearest’. In Girl with Green Eyes, by Edna O’Brien, ‘sly bitch’ is similarly used as an intimacy. John Wain’s A Travelling Woman also has three examples of ‘you bitch’ being used as a disguised endearment. Fletch, by Gregory Mcdonald, has: ‘Are you all right?’ ‘Sure.’ ‘I was afraid of that.’ ‘I love you, too, bitch.’ ‘Endearments will get you nowhere.’ An interesting comment on how the same expression can be both insulting and a covert endearment occurs in War Brides, by Lois Battle. ‘If I hadn’t married him I wouldn’t have met you,’ says a young woman to her lover. The conversation continues: ‘I know that, you silly bitch.’ ‘Don’t you dare call me that! Don’t you dare!’ ‘I’ve called you that before. I’ve called you that in bed and you even seemed to like it’