Douchebag and hoebag make a perfect match ... "
Mark Roberts
***
The douchebag phenomenon: An investigative report into modern culture’s acceptance of bag-related insults
The spectrum of swearing is an unequivocally wondrous and expansive place in the English language, designed with the flair of spectacular creativity and mercilessness for all to enjoy.
Swearing is a linguistically fascinating manifestation of several factors including common sexual innuendos and the combination of plosive and fricative consonants that can make them so remarkably effective (the word “fuckwit”, for instance, contains the fricative “f” as well as the plosives “k” and “t”, making it particularly phonetically vicious and fun).
douchebag
Swearing is fucking tight, but there’s more to your favourite zingers than you think. This report looks into the history of society’s many ‘bag’ insults.
Swearing is unquestionably defined by the culture of acceptability that surrounds it and common swear words generally have to ride an intermediate border of tolerability, which defines the swear as rude but doesn’t necessarily make the very fabric of society crumble under its weight.
For example, words such “fuck” and “shit” represent fornication and defecation, two concepts we can deal with like adults in a general sense. However, words representing the vagina are still perceived as too taboo to gain common usage. Excepting, of course, the vast Australian adoption for the word “cunt” as a friendly and indifferent word for “mate”.
Then again, we are the cultural descendants of exported criminals and have always been purposefully delinquent in that way.
A particularly interesting subset of swear words that have been readily adopted by our generation for reasons of censorship and cultural acceptability are terms with the suffix “bag”, which include a colourful array ranging all the way from “douchebag” to “shitbag”, “dirtbag”, “ratbag” and the particularly creative, “hoe-bag”.
In writing this, we have also just discovered that the word “douchebag” is officially in the Microsoft word dictionary, which I believe is great news for everybody. Most words with the “bag” suffix appeared at some point in the mid-20th Century, with words such as “douchebag” deriving from various points in the 1970s and 80s and terms such as “shitbag” and “dirtbag” gaining popularity from common military slang originally referring to the garbage collectors.
However, the spectrum of “bag” words are recognised as a deeply millennial verbal phenomenon, with integration into the popular vernacular only successfully taking hold in the late 90s.
This is related in part to the abstraction of the words from their original purpose – for example, douching as a practice doesn’t entirely require any kind of bag anymore so it’s not regarded as quite as graphic an image.
Similarly, the word “dirtbag” is no longer related to its original military coining, allowing for such iconic cultural moments as Wheatus’ 2000 hit Teenage Dirtbag, which I believe we can all agree was one of the greatest chapters of our pre-adolescent lives.
These words have also arguably become a staple of popular swearing vernacular due to their lack of political or social allusion. With the decline of homophobic, sexist and racist terms due to, you know, their overall offensive nature, political correctness has bizarrely come in to fashion the attractiveness of swear words such as “douchebag” or “dirtbag”.
They display freedom from the constraints of political correctness and media censorship guidelines on primetime television and mainstream radio. These words can be employed freely in music without the blanking, beeping, hushing or distortion that’s necessary for other terms.
The word “pussy”, for example, is largely distorted in hip-hop songs as played on the radio due to its sexist implications.
The word “douchebag” and its diminutive version, “douche”, are readily engaged on primetime television these days, with a 2009 study by the US Parents Television Council recording a 200% increase in the word’s frequency from 2008-2009 on primetime network television shows such as Grey’s Anatomy, The Vampire Diaries, and Law & Order.
Community’s creator, Dan Harmon, cites his enthusiasm for the work as a result of it’s appearance as a vulgar word but with benefit of social acceptability, “This is a word that has evolved in the last couple of years – a thing that sounds like a thing you can’t say”.
The “douchebag” is a particularly apt linguistic phenomenon because it has come to represent constructs of male vanity that we commonly recognise as distasteful and narcissistic; the word is synonymous with apparel such as Ed Hardy, muscle tees, ostentatious racing cars, and overly enthusiastic use of the word “bro”.
The suffix “bag” is thought to be offensive due to the labelling of an individual purely as a receptacle, commonly for semen (cum), faeces (shit), or garbage, with the implication that they’re not great use for anything else.
This has of course, been interpreted with fervour by people looking to further vulgarise the spectrum of “bag” swear words including “slut-bag” and the term “dick-bag” that we believe was derived from a particular Louis CK skit in which he was confusingly instructed by an angry driver to “Suck a bag of dicks”.
Of course, much like every other vaguely taboo term, these swear words will inevitably lose their zest with over-usage and unquestioning mainstream acceptability. After all, swear words are designed to challenge the status quo and once they fail to do this, they are determinably useless in their employ.
For the time being, however, they have come to represent a truly 2000s moment in the spotlight, a niche representing our profound Americanisation as well as a more civilised (and slightly oxymoronic) notion of swearing without particular offense.
***
A US congressional candidate has been criticised after he described Melania Trump as a “hoebag” on Twitter.
Mark Roberts, who is running in Oregon’s 2nd district was responding to a tweet from conservative activist Charlie Kirk about the First Lady.
“Did you know the First Lady works by the hour? #thinkdirty #hoebag," Mr Roberts wrote.
Melania Trump 'focused on role as first lady' after Cohen tape
As fellow Twitter users began criticising his comment, the candidate doubled down, responding to one tweet by saying: “You start whipping out $100’s and see how #classy she gets #makeitrain!”
Eventually his comments came to the attention of Fox News host Laura Ingraham, who asked Twitter founder Jack Dorsey to remove the tweet and suspend Mr Roberts’ account. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy made a similar request, tweeting: “Comments like these have no business on any platform.”
Mr Robert’s account was still active as of Wednesday afternoon.
On his campaign website, Mr Roberts says he is “not a fan of the Trump administration” and lists Mr Trump as one of the top five people he would not take a selfie with. In previous tweets, he referred to US Senator Kamala Harris as “hot”, and said of the president: “Get that man a haircut and non-fat chocolate cake!”
In the “FAQ” section of his website, Mr Roberts says he would spend his first day in Washington viewing Nazi artwork in the Centre for Military History.
“Not to worry, I’m Jewish,” he adds.
Mr Roberts did not respond to The Independent's request for comment.
hoebag
sex
1. A female who loves penis in general.
2. A female who will do anything sexually with any penis.
Speaker 1: I was at this party once and I saw this chick getting all of her holes filled at once.
Speaker 2: Damn, wutta hoebag!
hoe bag
sex
A slut. One who has no self respect.
A girl who has sex with many patners
hoebag
sex
A dirty, two-faced whore who will fuck your brother and your best friend.
That stupid, filty hoebag, Jennifer fucked my brother and my best friend. What a fucking hoebag!
#slut#whore#tramp#2 faced cunt#backstabbing fucking wench#dirty diesel dyke
hoebag
A person {preferrably a woman} who "gets around." Some one who is such ahoe that their vagina has been stretched to such an extent that it can be used as a bag to carry things such as: mail, yoga balls, ipods, crayons, ect. ect.
person 1: awww. i don't have any pockets, now what am i supposed to do with my keys?
person 2: give them to Stacey, she's a hoebag, and i'm sure she'll have room.
#whore#hoebag#ho#vagina#hoe
hoe bag
A physical bag that a hoe will carry with them most of the time. The bag usually contains extra clothing, lube, condoms, tampons, pregnancy test...and other such items that allow her to sleep from place to place with guy to guy. Be aware that one might call this an “emergency bag”, that would be bull shit.
Tonya carried a hoe bag the whole time I knew her. Fuckin hoe.
#hoe#bag#slut#bitch#hooker
***
bag
Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus, Medical, Legal, Financial, Acronyms, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia.
bag
1. tv. to capture and arrest someone. (see also bagged. Underworld.) They bagged the robber with the loot still on him.
2. n. an ugly woman. (Rude and derogatory.) Tell the old bag to mind her own business.
3. n. one’s preference; something suited to one’s preference. That kind of stuff is so not my bag!
4. tv. to obtain something. I’ll try to bag a couple of tickets for you.
5. n. a container of drugs. (Drugs. Not necessarily a real bag.) Two bags of H. for two dimes?
6. in. to die. The guy was coughing so hard that I thought he was going to bag right there.
7. tv. to apply a respirator to someone. (Medical. The respirator has a bag attached to hold air.) Quick, bag him before he boxes.
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
See:(one's) way out of a paper bag
a bag lady
a bag of bones
a bag of nerves
a bag of tricks
a bag/box of tricks
a bag/bundle of nerves
a bundle of nerves
a mixed bag
a mixed bag/bunch
air-bags
an old bag
bag
bag and baggage
bag ass
bag ass out of somewhere
bag it
Bag it!
bag of bones
bag of tricks
bag of wind
bag on
bag on someone
bag some rays
bag someone
Bag that!
Bag your face!
bagged
bags on (something)
bags...
barf bag
be (not) (one's) bag
be left holding the bag
be not (one's) bag
bottom of the bag
brown bag it
brown-bag
brown-bag it
bug-out bag
can't punch (one's) way out of a paper bag
can't punch one's way out of a paper bag
catch some rays
check (one's) bags through (to) (some place)
check bags through
couldn't act (one's) way out of a paper bag
couldn't fight (one's) way out of a paper bag
couldn't fight your way out of a paper bag
couldn't find (one's) way out of a paper bag
couldn't punch (one's) way out of a paper bag
doggy bag
douche bag
douchebag
gasbag
give (one) the bag
grab bag
half in the bag
have bags under (one's) eyes
he, she, etc. couldn't punch his, her, etc. way out of a paper bag
hold the bag
in the bag
leave (one) holding the bag
leave holding the bag
let the cat out of the bag
mixed bag
not be someone's bag
old bag
one’s bag
out of a paper bag
pack (one's) bag(s)
pack your bag
pack your bags
pull (something) out of the bag
put on the (old) feed bag
put on the feed bag
put the feed bag on
rough as bags
shit-bag
slime bag
someone's bag of tricks
squint like a bag of nails
strap on the (old) feed bag
the cat is out of the bag
three bags full
three bags full, sir
tie on the (old) feed bag
What’s in the bag!
whole bag of tricks
windbag
your bag