son of a bitch, you

   ‘You’re a ham, you son of a bitch, and you know it,’ says an American man to another in The Philanderer, by Stanley Kauffmann. This comes in the middle of a friendly conversation, and the man addressed takes no offence.

   The term is similar in many ways to ‘bastard’ in that can be used as both a serious insult or almost as a compliment, according to who says it to whom. and in what tone of voice. Some speakers might say it as ‘son of a b’. See also s.o.b.

   All of these variants can be softened down by including the word ‘old’ and made more abusive by the inclusion of other words, as in ‘Well, well, you old son of a bitch, where the hell have you been?’ and ‘You stupid son of a bitch. You nearly ran me down.’ The plural form ‘you couple of lazy sons of bitches’ is used insultingly in Doctor at Sea, by Richard Gordon.

   In modern times ‘son of a bitch’ and its variants are thought of as American terms of contempt rather than British. They were certainly used in Britain in former times. ‘You son of a b-’ occurs in Joseph Andrews, by Henry Fielding (see also Bitch for the novelist’s comments on that word).

   As for Shakespeare, he comes very close to using it in King Lear (2:i), when Kent embarks on a long string of insults to Oswald. ‘What dost thou know me for?’ asks Oswald, and is told in reply that Kent knows him for a ‘knave, rascal, whoreson rogue, beggar, coward, pander’ and ‘the son and heir of a mongrel bitch’.