What's the origin of the idiom "bust one's chops"?
The idiom is defined on Dictionary.com as:
- bust one's chops, Slang. to exert oneself.
- bust someone's chops, Slang. to annoy with nagging or criticism.
Looking it up on Google, I couldn't find much info on its origin. The only source I found that seems credible is this site, which mentions that the idiom's origin could possibly be the fashion for men to wear long side burns called the mutton chop in the 19th century and that these people often get punched in the face, thus their "chops busted"? I could see a connection between this and definition #2 of the idiom, but what about definition #1 of the idiom? I don't see how this could have anything to do with the sense to exert oneself?
"Chop" just literally means jaws, or sides of one's face. It's the second noun definition for "chop" in the OED. Its usage extends back to the early 16th century. Its etymology is from "chap," which is a jawbone, and an ever older word. So, the phrase is literal: "Don't bust my chops," means "don't hit me in the jaw." However, its usage is typically metaphorical, as: "don't give me such a hard time."
The first meaning "to exert oneself" is (elaborating just slightly on what the OED includes) just derived from aiming this action at oneself. The origin of the beating-up usage is USA in the early 50s, and the exertion usage is USA in the 60s. That is, "Why would I bust my chops to get a job?" = "Why would I beat myself up to get a job?" = "Why would I exert myself hard to get a job?"
According to J.E. Lighter, Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang (1994), the term "bust [one's] chops" goes back to the 1950s in the sense of "annoyance" and to the 1960s in the sense of "exertion":
break [or bust] (someone's) chops, 1. to harass by the forcible exertion of one's authority; (also) to make a nuisance of oneself; to anger, annoy, or frustrate.
[Earliest citations:] 1953 Paley Rumble 254: Rocky is breakin' our chops. 1970 Zindel Your Mind 17: And the two ladies in room 409...busted my chops about regulating the oxygen. Ibid. She'd say "How was school?" and I'd say it busted my chops.
2. to work to exhaustion; bust (one's) ass
[First citation:] 1966 [Jay] Neugeboren Big Man 63 {ref. to 1950's}: If Thorpe can get ten for busting his chops way back in 1930, I can get more than five from Louie.
Lighter notes a couple of related expressions from Black English: "beat (up) (one's) chops," meaning "to talk or complain, esp. to no purpose," from 1946; and "run(one's chops out," meaning "to talk or complain," from 1964.
Here is the Neugeboren quotation in greater context, with the narrator of the novel comparing his situation to that of Jim Thorpe in 1930 "playing for half-assed football teams at ten bucks a game":
Guess things were different then. Yeah. Ten bucks for bumping heads on a football field when he was past forty. But I think: if Thorpe can get ten for busting his chops way back in 1930 I can get more than five from Louie. The depression's over man.
A slightly earlier instance of this sense of the phrase appears in The Saint Mystery Magazine, volume 21 (1964) [combined snippets]:
"You want me to take care of that blonde, don't you?"
"Yass! That's business." Banner's jowls were grim. "Dangerous business." He gnawed on the stogie. "I've been busting my chops trying to spring these last twenty-one good American boys from this stinking can, when along comes that blonde floozie and knocks — "
J.S. Farmer & W.E. Henley, Slang and Its Analogues, Past and Present (1891) notes that chops was slang for "mouth," as in the phrases "lick the chops {CHOPS = the mouth, lips, jaws}" going back to 1655 and "down in the chops or mouth ... {Sad, melancholy}" going back to 1830. Farmer & Henley offers the following etymology for the word chops as used in this sense:
{CHOPS = the mouth, lips, jaws.} Fr[ench], les jaffes.
- "FELLOWES, tr., Milton's 2nd Defence, 227. The sight of this egg ... caused our monarchy-men ... to LICK THEIR CHOPS."
You can read the full quotation from Milton in this edition of The Second Defence of the People of England, Against an Anonymous Libel Entitled "The Royal Blood Crying to Heaven for Vengeance on the English Parricides". It thus appears that chops as "mouth" has been around for centuries.
Lighter points out that bust as a verb can mean "to hit hard; slug" going back to 1873. It seems not at all unreasonable to connect the two ideas into an expression for (metaphorically) slugging someone in the mouth. The odd thing about the exhaustion dorm of "bust one's chops" is that the person is said to be busting his or her own chops. Still the idea of working to exhaustion by "busting one's chops" is no stranger as an image than doing so by "busting one's ass."
Interestingly, Lighter finds an almost identical pair of meanings corresponding to the two senses of "bust (one's) chops" for "bust one's hump" ["to exert (oneself) to exhaustion"], from the 1930s, and "break (or bust) (someone's) hump" ["to harass, vex, or overcome (someone)"], from the 1950s. These phrases appear in Lighter under the definition of hump as "one's self; ASS."
A final point of interest is the observation in Harold Wentworth & Stuart Flexner, Dictionary of American Slang (1960) that chops as a singular noun could mean the thighs or hips in "Negro use":
chops n. sing. 1 The mouth; the lips 2 The legs, esp. the thighs; the hips. Negro use.
Wentworth & Flexner does not mention the phrase "bust (one's) chops" at all, however.
The ultimate origin of "bust one's chops" is unclear, but the fact that it was not in widespread use as late a 1960, but became common thereafter, makes any attempt to associate it with the muttonchop whiskers of the nineteenth century seem rather farfetched. It seems much likelier that the phrase grew out of busting as "punching" or "breaking" and chops as "mouth" or (maybe) "legs."