‘This story is regarded by Roberts and others as a most amusing one, though the point of the joke will need explaining to readers of this thirtieth century.
‘Apparently “bottom” was the common equivalent, in the secret language which I postulate, of the word “buttocks”. Now, among primitive peoples no man will utter common words which coincide with or merely resemble in sound tabood names, and, though the twentieth century refused to admit itself primitive, we cannot now understand on what grounds this refusal could have been plausibly justified. The principle I have italicized is a direct quotation from a contemporary treatise on taboo. The author, whose name has been lost with the title-page of the unique copy in the Jerusalem Library, was only able to state this principle in the case of the South African Zulus and other savage tribes; but there is little doubt in my mind that the point of the joke lay in the sensitivity of the Bottom families to the obscene connotations of their name. That the buttocks should have been tabood is a surprising idea, but apparently a morbid prolongation of the lavatory-taboo accounts for it: or so Mannheim holds. The Bottom names either had no original connexion with the buttocks as in Bottomwallop, which is a geographical name, or, as in Longbottom, they were inherited from an age when the taboo had not yet hardened. Be that as it may, the unfortunates who were born at this period to a name containing the tabood syllable were in a quandary. If they changed their names by Deed Poll, the expense and embarrassment would be considerable. Yet not to change meant that they would continue to be aware of repressed snickering wherever they went beyond the immediate circle of their friends. Most of them, therefore, changed the spelling merely from “Bottom” to “Botham”, and thus thought to circumvent the taboo. Indeed, as Roberts tells the story, the Bottom guests were all disguised as Bothams or Bottomes. One family, the Sidebottoms or Sidebothams, went so far as to pronounce their name “Siddybotaam” and in Bigland’s Life and Times of H. Botomley (1954) there is mention of one of these “Siddybotaams” to whom Bottomley (a famous practical joker) is said to have introduced himself as “H. Bumley, Esq.”, “bum” being a common, but strongly tabood, shortening of “bottom”.
‘Now, the secret language, which was generally known as “smut”—possibly the idea of defilement is latent in this word, since another synonym was “The Dirty Talk” or “The Foul Language”—was so rich in its vocabulary, and drew so copiously on the legitimate language for secret obscene usages of common words, that the greatest ingenuity was needed in legitimate speech to avoid the appearance of obscenity. Thus so common a word as “bottom” meaning a base, a bed, a fundament, a cause, owing to its use in smut as an equivalent for “buttocks”, could never be used in the legitimate language in any context where a double entendre might be understood. The word “parts” becoming a synonym in Smut of the organs of generation had to be used with great care, and these are merely two isolated instances of a principle so strong that when two persons who had been initiated into the third or fourth degree of the secret language began a conversation, practically not a single phrase could be used by them without this double entendre, causing hysterical laughter. And not merely the names themselves but any words that sound like them are scrupulously avoided, and other words used in their place. A custom of this sort, it is plain, may easily be a potent agent of change in language, for, where it prevails to any considerable extent, many words must constantly become obsolete and new ones spring up.
‘This is a quotation from the same anonymous ethnologist, who is here discussing the taboos in Melanesia and Australia on the mention of the names of certain relatives, whether dead or alive, but it also explains many linguistic changes in the vocabulary of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries: for instance, the constant out-of-dating of popular equivalents to the words “whore” and “harlot” which being Biblical alone remained in constant use as pure descriptive terms; and the disappearance from common use of the phrase “a man of parts”, meaning “a man of great attainments”, and the phrase “he (or she) has no bottom”, meaning that the person referred to has no stability of character. It will be seen that this furtive language must have had a great influence on the legitimate language.
‘For confirmation of my theory of the indecency of the word “bottom” see Boswell’s Life of Doctor Johnson under the date of 1781:
Talking of a very respectable author he told us a curious circumstance in his life, which was, that he had married a printer’s devil.
Reynolds: “A printer’s devil, sir! Why I thought a printer’s devil was a creature with a black face and in rags.”
Johnson: “Yes, sir. But I suppose he had her face washed and put clean clothes on her. (Then looking very serious and very earnest.) And she did not disgrace him; the woman had a bottom of good sense.” The word bottom thus introduced was as ludicrous when contrasted with his gravity, that most of us could not forbear tittering and laughing; though I recollect that the Bishop of Killaloe kept his countenance with perfect steadiness, while Miss Hannah More slyly hid her face behind a lady’s back who sat on the same settee with her. His pride could not bear that any expression of his should excite ridicule, when he did not intend it; he therefore resolved to assume and exercise despotick power, glanced sternly around and called out in a strong tone, “Where’s the merriment?” Then collecting himself and looking aweful to make us feel how he could impose restraint, and as it were searching his mind for a still more ludicrous word, he slowly pronounced “I say the woman was fundamentally sensible” as if he had said “Hear this now and laugh if you dare!” We all sat composed as at a funeral.