[Sca-cooks] "Bugger" (today's supplement of Useless Knowledge)

[El Hermoso Dormido]

On Wednesday 30 October 2002 03:22 pm, Huette von Ahrens wrote:
[...]
> > yes bugger is from buggerer which is same
> > thing:)
> >
> > Elric
>
> And all of these come from "Bulgar" because, for
> whatever reason, the Elizabethan English thought
> that all Bulgarians or Bulgars were sodomists.
>
> So to use "bugger" you are putting down
> Bulgarians, just as you are doing the same when
> you say "I jewed him down" or "I scotched the
> deal" or "He's in dutch now".  All slurs to
> different nationalities.

Actually, I seem to recall that the term wasn't "national" but
came from a heretical sect of some sort.  That is, the term is
NOT abusive to citizens of Bulgaria but to members of a presumably-
now-defunct heretical religious sect.

Sure enough, a Merriam-webster search on "Bulgar" turns up a
reference to the "Bogomils" - the sect in question.  It was
this sect that was accused of being sodomites.

And, hey, it's "period", even. (10th century).