Learn English – the origin of the phrase “hurt(s) like a bitch/motherf***er/bastard”

historymeaningphrase-origin

Intuitively, what would make a 'bitch' hurt? Perhaps calling a woman 'bitch' after she breaks up with you, hence it 'hurts'? A 'motherfucker' hurts, for good reason (no one likes their mother to be fucked). A 'bastard' seems to make some sense too. No one wants a bastard child. But what makes these phrases so interesting to me, is that they are usually used in the sense of cursing physical pain, and yet the first thing that comes to mind when reading these kind of phrases is the mental pain that is connotative of being around these undesirable social roles.

Google ngrams results:

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All three seem to have originated around the late 60s but obviously, could have been earlier in spoken speech. 'Hurts like a bastard' is the earliest derivative according to Ngrams:

hurts like crazy ~ 1950 Leslie Stephen

hurts like a bastard ~ 1967 John O'Hara

hurts like a bitch ~ 1969 Myles Ludwig

hurts like a motherfucker ~ 1970 Charles Davis

hurts like shit ~ 1970 Walden Leecing

hurt like buggery ~ 1970 Stanley Winchester

hurt like fuck ~ 1986 Clive Barker

fucking hurts ~ 1978 Kyle Reich

The fact that all of these derivatives seem to have common written origins in the late 60s, likely means there is a common link or instigating source. Perhaps the Vietnam War brought about the release of tensions in the form of a bigger leniency toward the use of creative new swears?

Interestingly, all of these derivatives are incorporating undesirable social affiliations (and thus the mental anguish associated with them) and conflating them with actual physical pain. This makes me think that there's no coincidence that these specific words were used. Not many other swear words would fit in this phrase: i.e. 'hurts like a shit', or 'hurts like a fuck', or 'hurts like a cunt', or 'hurts like a damn'. Amazingly, it's the precise fact that the words 'bitch/bastard/motherfucker' have no association with physical pain that actually makes them, counter-intuitively, a better fit for this phrase 'hurts like a —–' than most other swear words.

A possible origin could be 'hurt(s) like hell', or 'hurt(s) like the devil', or 'hurt(s) like the dickens' which were around all the way since the early 1900s:

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But I don't think this explains why the common forms 'like a bitch/motherfucker/bastard' all commonly seemed to spring up in the late 60s.

Going back even further, let's examine the root form 'hurt(s) like': and we can find what was used before 'hurt like hell': 'hurt(s) like thunder' and 'hurt(s) like blazes'.
Other than these two, 'hurt like' only yields one-time similes.

There is evidence to suggest that the phrase 'like blazes' derives from the phrase 'like hell' (blazes originally meaning fire but then started to be used euphemistically for the 'fires of hell'), but the phrase 'hurt(s) like hell' derives from the phrase 'hurt(s) like blazes', with the 'hell' variant only becoming popular in the early 1900s, and the 'blazes' variant starting from the mid 1800s. Although a factor could be that 'blazes' was being used as a euphemism for 'hell' being too obscene.

"Beginning in the 19th century, however, “blazes” began to be used to mean specifically “the fires of hell” and, by extension, things similarly intense and merciless. Thus were born such phrases as “like blazes” indicating great intensity or force (“The horse … went like blazes,” 1812), as well as the use of “blazes” as a euphemistic synonym for “hell” (“How the blazes you can stand the head-work you do, is a mystery to me,” Dickens, 1837) or “perdition” (“The moral of A party had gone to blazes,” 1924)."

Best Answer

The first two cursewords are specifically and characteristically common to modern black American vernacular English, as is the dropping of the "s" in the word "hurts," so that is strongly suggestive of some relationship to this phrase (note also that your Charles Davis citation is actually from a book called On Being Black).

I'd hazard a guess that the increased prominence of the phrases' general usage starting in the 60's might be related to the increased racial integration of American society, and the resulting more powerful and less filtered cultural influence of black America (compare the dates of the introduction of "blaxploitation" films). Anecdotally speaking, these words are more common in mainstream depictions of black speech than in actual black speech, which suggests a particular fondness for them as signifiers of blackness in mainstream culture.

In terms of usage, I read them as first anthropomorphizing the pain, and then cursing it. Anthropomorphic language is also characteristic of black American vernacular. It's worth noting that "bastard" is an outlier here, while anthropomorphic, it is not specifically characteristic of black vernacular.

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