I chanced upon my first James Hadley Chase when I was in Class Five. Unfortunately, I had finished close to every Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Judy Blume, Stanley Gardners or whatever else that kids read. So I graduated to Asimovs, Chekov and uh.. well Chase.
Having read a few of the Chase novels, I came across a word Sonofabitch. Now, with no one to guide me, I assumed that
a. This was a BAD word
b. It was ONE word.
I had no idea what it meant, except that characters in Chase novels called each other that all the time. I liked using new words all the time. And one day my sister, really pissed me off by doing something that 6 year old kids do. I called her a sun-ofar-a-bee-tech. My mother looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. Me, full of pride figured that my mom had never heard of this word, and I said it again, sun-ofar-a-bee-tech. My mom asked me to spell it, and when I did, shot a killing look at my father. I was then told that it was the kind of bad word that kids must never use. (I was allowed to use idiot, fool, rascal when I was exceptionally angry. I used words like bloody and rascal when they weren’t around!) And my father then told me that it meant that someone was a male child of a female dog. A category that I realized my sister definitely didn’t fit.
Years later though, I can’t figure out why it’s an insult. I love dogs. Blah. Bye till Monday!
Posted on March 24th, 2005 by Neha Viswanathan
Filed under: Random Links
