“Hey did you hear, Stacy is such a slut.” “I hate your fuckin guts you slut, you fuckin slut, I hope you die” –Eminem. “You don’t wanna date her, she’s a slut” But wait what is a slut and why is it such a common term amongst today’s youth and what are they exactly saying when they reference a slut. The oxford English dictionary defines a slut as, “A woman of dirty, slovenly, or untidy habits or appearance; a foul slattern.” Its earliest reference was in in 1402 when Thomas Hoccleve used, “The foulest slutte of al a town.” So the way we think of a slut is a promiscuous woman? It seemed correct, many dictionaries such as Merrium Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Oxford American Dictionary and Thesaurus, and New International Dictionary. However, at first, I missed something; the definition references a dirty woman of untidy habits, appearances, or foul slattern. In some of these definitions, such as that in The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary and even in the few previously listed; there are a couple more definitions. In the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Slut is defined as a kitchen maid, a woman of low or loose character, a female dog, bitch. So what does this mean? A slut is a kitchen maid? Someone like Cinderella, who cleans kitchens and homes? In 1609, the term Slut is used as a noun by Charles Butler to describe a piece of rag dipped in lard or fat and used as a light. However, this side path on the word just circles back to the source. The Slut referenced is just the lamp in which a “Slut” uses when cleaning or for light. However, while searching the Dictionary of Confusable Words, the definition of slut said “see slag.” A slag is defined as, “A woman who looks disreputable and who is regarded as sexually immoral. However, slag stresses the sexual side and slut the appearance, so that the two are not really incompatible.” So slut was a cultural term used to describe someone who is dirty and unclean and slag described the sexually loose nature, but like it is defined, the two are much alike.

            At this point I will not just let that be the answer, I wanted to keep digging deeper. Now that there is clearly a cultural impact on the word, its usage, and definition, I went back to the source. Johnson’s Dictionary defines slut as everything previously listed as well as, “an awkward person, animal, or thing,” and “a female dog, a bitch.” So clearly, the dirty animalistic nature of a slut has something to do with the definition. So why is slut partially defined as being a bitch? From the understanding of the word slut so far, a slut is a dirty woman, a maid, and someone of a possibly loose sexual, sloven, prowess. At this point I looked at the word bitch. The oldest known usage was circa 1000 found in Anglo- Saxon and Old English Vocab. The term was used to describe a female dog. So it would now make sense that a female dog could be seen as a kitchen or house maid, seeing how repressive culture was on women at points in history. At this point after searching dictionaries, definitions, and literature, it still leaves me to wonder, where did the word slut come from and why. It is a blend of a cultural repression of women, especially those in the lower classes, loose sexual nature, and being dirty. And after all this time and research I have come to a hypothesis, bitch turned into slut do tooooooooooooo…………..wait for it………..bad linguistics. Yup bad linguistics. You start with bitch which defines a female dog or dirty animal. After being spoken for so long and later picked up by different individuals traveling around the western European region and having it blend with many lisps, accents, and languages, it is possible that bitch was morphed into slutch. Slutch in the Oxford English Dictionary is defined as mud, mire, slush. So we are now at dirt and things that cause someone to be dirty. From here the word could again have morphed into Slag or slut depending on where the word was used and by who. From that point on the word slut stuck and became a part of the English vocabulary to define a very promiscuous woman who is very sexually active. Now the fun part. I can back up my theory on the word bitch morphing into Slut by addressing the words slut and sloot. Urban dictionary, the always trusty and handy index and insight into the world of teenage slang and words defines a slut as………..”a women with the morals of a man.” Another definition is “Someone who provides a very needed service for the community and sleeps with everyone, even the guy that has no shot at getting laid and everyone knows it. She will give him a sympathy fuck either because someone asked her to or she just has to fuck everyone she knows. These are great people, and without them sex crimes would definitly increase. Thank you slut, where ever you are.” Now being around teens and having been one of them, we also liked to use the term sloot. “Sloot is the basic word. The more O's in "sloot", the sluttier the girl is. 2 O's is the minimum; you can add as many O's as necessary to add emphasis to just how slutty the girl is.” And my favorite “A word that I thought I made up but apparently did not.” This helps to back up my theory that the word bitch morphed into slut. Because due to who is using the word and how they are saying it you can turn it into something completely different.