Bastard

The early use of bastard was literal, alluding to the fact of illegitimacy, while the subsequent potency of the term as a swearword obviously derives from the stigma of the condition. Originally the word referred to a child of a nobleman born out of wedlock but acquiring some paternal status. It is derived from Old French fils de bast , interpreted alternatively as a “child born in a barn” or “child of the packsaddle.” (Packsaddles were used as makeshift beds for men on the move, who might share their beds with local women.) The term is recorded as a surname, notably in the case of Geoffrey the Bastard Plantagenet, Chancellor of England from 1181–1189, and is still occasionally encountered. The most distinguished bastard in English history, William the Conqueror, was known by his disreputable title well into the Middle Ages. The term has subsequently generalized greatly in meaning and tone.

One of the most savage instances of personal insult occurs in John Ford’s Tis Pity She’s a Whore (1633) in the denunciation: “Thy corrupted bastard-bearing womb!” (IV iii). However, in Shakespeare’s King Lear (ca. 1605), Edmund the Bastard famously interrogates this derogatory sense, asking: “Why bastard? wherefore base?”(I ii 6-9). François Rabelais attacked his critics in Pantagruel (1533): “As for you, little envious prigs, snarling bastards … go hang yourselves” (in the translation of 1737 by Peter A. Motteux). By the early nineteenth century it was being used as a word of reproach; in 1833, Charles Lamb, normally a mild-mannered person, complained in a letter about a sick child who had kept him awake: “The little bastard is gone.”

Eric Partridge comments in his annotated edition of Grose’s Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1931): “During the War [World War I] it was very frequent among British troops of all countries and most counties.” He noted that even then it could express opprobrium, affection, and sympathy or simply be used in a neutral fashion. Class differences in usage were noted by Robert Graves in his study The Future of Swearing:

Among the governed classes one of the unforgivable words of abuse is “bastard.”… Whereas in the governing classes there is always far greater tolerance towards bastards, who often have noble or even royal blood in their veins, and who, under the courtesy title of “natural sons and daughters,” have contributed largely to our ancestral splendours. (1936, 15)

In Modern English bastard has almost entirely lost its original literal sense, having been replaced by the euphemism “love child.” Furthermore, in the global varieties of the language, bastard has acquired very different connotations: in American and British English the traditional virulence is still apparent in direct personalized usage, such as “you bastard!” It can also be used of something unpleasant or difficult, as in “This thing’s a real bastard.” However, in Australian English, where the wide currency of the term has been commented on since World War I, it is used with a considerable variety of tones. A previous prime minister, Gough Whitlam, said in an address to his party in 1974 that he did not mind his political opponents “calling me a bastard…. But I hope that you will not publicly call me a bastard as some bastards in the Caucus have” ( Sunday Telegraph , June 9). Sir Edmund Hillary, co-conqueror of Mt. Everest in 1953, memorably announced the achievement: “We knocked the bastard off!” The term can express compassion (“the poor bastard”) or even affection (“he’s a good bastard”).