SOB AND EUPHEMISMS

Humankind is aggressive—physically and verbally—and both forms are dangerous. Verbal aggression in the shape of insults is widespread across languages, and I would venture to suggest that son of a bitch is one of the most widespread of them, at least in the Western world. I stand to be corrected.

The expression has generated its euphemisms. In English, we find softened variants such as son of a bee, son of a biscuit, the jocular son of a gun, and the abbreviation SOB. One newspaper writes: “…but he is a damn son of a bee and yet I am very happy he was not killed” (News 24, November 24, 2017, U.S.).

Y, claro, el castellano también recurre a atenuaciones del antiguo hijo de puta: hijo de pu, hijo de la Gran Bretaña, hijo de su madre… expresiones que suenan menos fuertes.

The pattern itself—son of a + X, hijo de + X—is strikingly productive. Needless to say, I reject both such verbal aggression and violence in all its forms.