Behind every pair of breasts there was a man. It was men who set the standards for the Breast Betterment League and determined when a pair was ready to face the world. They described women who qualified as well developed (19thC), (well) stacked (mid 20thC), (well) endowed or zaftig (20thC, Yiddish for “juicy, luscious, overweight in the right places”). Later, they said a woman was well built. The phrase originated in the 1930s, a time when many a public bathrooms was going up, especially in parks and recreation areas, as part of the WPA. Given men’s way with words (especially about women) and the pleasure they take in the bathroom and bathroom phrases, it was only natural that they’d link her architecture to that of the the privies of the time which were of truly solid construction. Hence the ultimate tribute, built like a brick shithouse (20thC). What finer compliment could a woman hope for?
Literate men, however, would have little to do with such phrases, opting instead for more gentile expressions such as buxom. Buxom derives from the Old English bouen, “to bow,” and was once an innocent word used to describe a person of either sex who was humble, submissive, obedient, tractable, and easily bent— qualities any lord would be happy to find in his peasants.
By the sixteenth century the word had begun to be applied specifically to a powerfully built female field hand. It later made a quantum leap to her appearance, and today refers to any woman with a shapely full-bosomed figure.
Read more – http://bawdylanguage.com
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