A few weeks ago a press release came from the indefatigable Don Myers, trumpeter-in-chief for Oxford University Press. This was his startling announcement:

“A new definition of the word ‘bootylicious’ has just been added to the Oxford English Dictionary Online.”

I asked, “The booty-what?” I cried, “C’mon, Don!” I said, quietly, “Aaargh!”

A good PR man knows when the fish are biting. Myers promptly faxed this Constant Reader more about “bootylicious” than anyone really wants to know. Then he handed me over to Jesse Sheidlower, the wunderkind of English lexicography, and thereby hangs this column.

To end your suspense: “Bootylicious” obviously is an adjective. It emerged from the healthy swamps of slang in 1992 or thereabouts. In its original meaning, the word described rap lyrics that are “bad, weak.” That sense is now “rare.” The 1992 example comes from a song by one Snoop Doggy Dogg. It does not qualify for quotation in a family newspaper. A critic for Usenet Newsgroup said Mr. Dogg’s rhymes “are quite bootylicious.” I believe the comment was not intended as a compliment.

A second example came along on Jan. 17, 1994, in, of all unlikely places, the Lewiston (Idaho) Morning Tribune. There feature writer Andrea Vogt turned out an educational piece on teenagers’ slang in Idaho. At least it educated Constant Reader. She awarded first prizes for originality to “flippen flappin’, an expression of anger,” and “bootylicious, in the sense of good-looking.” Subsequent evidence has established that “bootylicious” now is used, according to OED Online, “esp. of a woman, often with reference to the buttocks; sexually attractive, sexy; shapely.”

Among the citations offered in evidence, in addition to the Lewiston Morning Tribune, are these:

• Slate Magazine, 01/05/99: “I still think she’s bootknockingly bootylicious.”

• Title of song, Destiny’s Child Survivor (album), 2001: “Bootylicious.”

• Elle magazine, January 2003: “Sasha’s plan was to add muscle mass to butt and hips – make me more bootylicious while simultaneously whittling away my waist.”

Myers stepped back in triumph.

Sheidlower’s team rounded up 25 examples of “bootylicious” in print, the minimum number of citations required for Oxford’s consideration. Other citations came from Vanity Fair, People magazine, Newsweek, Variety and The Washington Post. He wrote:

“I could easily get far more, and from even a more varied (yet mainstream) range of publications, if I went to Nexis or ProQuest or some other database. Of course, none of this means that ‘bootylicious’ is a ‘good’ word, or that you should be using it, or anything like that. It just means that it’s certainly common enough that it would pass the inclusion policies of most dictionaries, and certainly for OED.”

Constant Reader surrenders.

James Kilpatrick is a syndicated columnist. His e-mail address is: kilpatjj@aol.com.

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