Advertisement for the 1919 film The Son of a Gun, starring Gilbert M. “Broncho Billy” Anderson. Movie poster with two photos: one of Gilbert Anderson in faux-western dress, and the other of a man with a gun leaning over the body of a dead man (Anderson?), while a woman kneels beside the body looking concerned.
22 November 2021
The epithet son of a gun is a euphemism for son of a whore or son of a bitch. It first appears in print in the opening years of the eighteenth century. There is this dialogue from the Observator of 27–31 January 1705 in which one interlocutor uses the phrase son of a whore, and the second euphemizes it to son of a gun:
Country-m[an]. Why can’t you let me Jest, you may talk in Earnest your self if you please; I was at a Coffee-House t’other Day, and there a Man was saying, that the Country-man, meaning my own Dear self, was become the Observators Jester; Aye says another, he’s the Observators Terræ Filius. What’s the meaning of that Cramp Name?
Obs[ervator]. A TerræFilius, is the University Merry-Andrew, the Fool in the Play, but the Genuine Signification of the Word is Son of a Whore.
Country-m. Did his Worship mean so? He’s a Son of a Gun for his Pains; and had I understood his Gibberish, I should have Rub’d down his Calves-hide for his Sauciness.
Why gun was chosen as the substitute for the offending word is unknown. It is probably just an arbitrary choice. But in this early use in the British Apollo of 7–9 July 1708, gun was chosen, at least in part, for the rhyme:
You Apollo’s Son,
You’r a Son of a Gun,
Made up with Bamboosle,
You directly I’le puzzel.
Pray how many Feet has a Louse.
Have recourse to your Head;
For there they were Bred;
You may look any where,
I believe they are there;
Let me have no shuffling Excuse.
There is this from the 1727 play La Parodia del Pastor Fido, a play that was performed in London in both Italian and in English. This passage is from a scene in which the characters are about to enter a cave in which Mirtello and his lover Amarilli are hiding. Mirtillo says:
Do not make so much Noise,
Mister Son of a Gun,
That here’s nothing mislaid.
The Italian version of the play reads fío d’una ditta, which literally means son of a business firm. Not being conversant in eighteenth-century Italian idiom, my best guess is that this is an idiom meaning son of a whore, as ditta is a feminine noun meaning firm or enterprise, in other words, a woman engaged in trade of a sort.
And this from Nicolas Babble’s 1757 edition of The Prater:
Before I turned the corner of the street I lodge in, I was overtaken by two rascally barbers boys, who jammed me between them, and besmeared me with powder; and while I was endeavoring to brush it off, a son of a gun of chimney sweeper covered one side of my coat with soot.
And this from John Dunton’s 1762 The Life, Travels, and Adventures of Christopher Wagstaff, Gentleman, in which the writer proposes that different classes and types of people be referred to as breeds of dog, such as “women’s men” and fops as lap-dogs, soldiers and sailors as bull-dogs, and lawyers as blood-hounds, thus confirming that in this case, at least, gun is a euphemism for bitch:
I will not needlessly detain the judicious reader with enumerating the many obvious uses and conveniences of such an arrangement as this; but will only add, that among the many considerable advantages this would not be the smallest—that hereby the use of sundry names and appellations, of which some are ridiculous, and others are at least equally odious, and at the same time of not one half the significance and pertinency as these dog-names, would for the future be happily superseded—such as sc--nd--l, v-ll--n, son of a wh-re, son of a gun, and son of a tin-tan-tinderbox. Upon the whole, it appears we cannot call names with any tolerable propriety and discretion but by some such method as that offered in this dissertation; and by consequence, it may follow that, whatever he may be besides, every mother’s son among us is a son of a b-tch.
Sometimes a false legend of a term’s origins has been around for years and writings and citations can be found, some quite old, that seem to bear out the legendary origin. Such is the case with the myth of a nautical origin of the phrase son of a gun. The nautical explanation is that in the age of sail, women—wives, mistresses, and sex workers—were frequently on-board ship when in port or sailing in home waters and occasionally children would be born aboard ship. Common sailors slept on the gun deck and when on board, their wives and mistresses would sleep there too. If a child was born on board, it would likely be born on the gun deck. If male, such a child was referred to as a son of a gun. But this explanation only dates back to the mid-19th century, well after son of a gun was in common use. Admiral William Henry Smyth wrote the following in his 1867 book, the Sailor’s Word-book, one of the primary sources for data on 19th century nautical lingo:
SON OF A GUN. An epithet conveying contempt in a slight degree, and originally applied to boys born afloat, when women were permitted to accompany their husbands to sea; one admiral declared he literally was thus cradled, under the breast of a gun-carriage.
It’s a neat story, but unfortunately, it’s not true. As we have seen, son of a gun is just a euphemism, nothing more.
Sources:
Babble, Nicholas. The Prater, second edition. London: T. Lownds, 1757, 105. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).
The British Apollo, or Curious Amusements for the Ingenious. No. 43, 7–9 July 1708, 5. Gale Primary Sources: Burney Newspapers Collection.
Dunton, John. The Life, Travels, and Adventures of Christopher Wagstaff, Gentleman, vol. 1, London: J. Hinxman, 1762, 117–18. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).
Observator, 3.83, 27–31 January 1705, 1. Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. gun, n.
La Parodia del Pastor Fido: A Comick Opera. London: T. King, 1727, 38–39. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).
Smyth, William Henry. The Sailor’s Word-Book. London: 1867, 638. Algrove Publishing—Classic Reprint Series, 2004.
Image credit: Gold West Photoplay Company and William Sherry Service, 1919. Public domain image.
Thanks to Elisa Brilli for assistance in the Italian translation.