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This may seem like a silly question but...
Does anyone know when the name Fanny started to be used in America as a slang word for a persons bottom? How about as a slang word in other countries? I noticed that Fanny stopped making the top 1000 in the 1940s and Fannie stopped making the list in the 1970s. Just curious.
Thanks!
Melissa
Does anyone know when the name Fanny started to be used in America as a slang word for a persons bottom? How about as a slang word in other countries? I noticed that Fanny stopped making the top 1000 in the 1940s and Fannie stopped making the list in the 1970s. Just curious.
Thanks!
Melissa
1
Replies
Um...'fanny' here in England is a slang term for what is also called a girl's 'front bottom' or in less coy terms, vagina. How it got moved to the back bottom over there I don't know LOL Here it was a 19th Century coined term but the exact origin/association is unknown. I would imagine it was here in the 1800's and probably got shared amongst the international Allied troops of WWI so that by the mid 1920's it would be introduced on the American scene. It would probably be well-established by the 1930's and on the wane, dying out by the 1940's.
I imagine the move from vagina to buttock was one of simple misunderstanding. Sort of like Squaw - it actually means 'penis' but white misunderstanding means that people routinely make the mistake of calling me a 'squaw' when I'm just a mixed-blood Native American woman and like women everywhere, completely lack that appendage ;o)
Devon
I imagine the move from vagina to buttock was one of simple misunderstanding. Sort of like Squaw - it actually means 'penis' but white misunderstanding means that people routinely make the mistake of calling me a 'squaw' when I'm just a mixed-blood Native American woman and like women everywhere, completely lack that appendage ;o)
Devon
1
Yep, I also thought 'squaw' means Native American wife. At least that's what they say in Western comics :-) But then again, comics give such a destorted view on Native American tribes anyway; I can't believe they have survived and still get published to a wide audience in the 21st century!
Fanny and Fanni have been all the rage here in Finland as well, since the early 1990s. The name became popular together with other old-fashioned, cute names such as Ida, Emma and Sofia. I believe Fanny even made it to the Top 10 at some point. By now people are getting tired of these overused names and are turning to something else instead, so the popularity of Fanny is dropping rapidly.
The connection to arse or vagina is unknown of, unless you happen to be an English scholar or otherwise love leafing through dictionaries :-)
Lass
Fanny and Fanni have been all the rage here in Finland as well, since the early 1990s. The name became popular together with other old-fashioned, cute names such as Ida, Emma and Sofia. I believe Fanny even made it to the Top 10 at some point. By now people are getting tired of these overused names and are turning to something else instead, so the popularity of Fanny is dropping rapidly.
The connection to arse or vagina is unknown of, unless you happen to be an English scholar or otherwise love leafing through dictionaries :-)
Lass
1
It's just considered vulgar slang, not as bad as c*nt or anything, more on the level of arse. But there's a Swedish model working here named Fanny and everyone, once they stopped twittering, thought it was sort of cute. Matter of fact, she had this sort of page-boy-over-mohawk haircut that was the rage last summer and girls were requesting 'a Fanny' LOL from their hairdressers.
Devon
Devon
1