peenee/peenie/peeny

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:15 AM +0000 2/2/05, neil wrote:
>on 2/2/05 3:19 am, Wilson Gray at wilson.gray at RCN.COM wrote:
>
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>  -----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       Wilson Gray <wilson.gray at RCN.COM>
>>  Subject:      Re: children's chant
>>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>--> -
>>
>>  So, there really is a word, "peeny." I ran across it in a novel, back
>>  in the '70's. I thought the author had invented it.
>>
>>  -Wilson
>
>A couple of variant spellings:
>
>'An interesting tribe are the Sweenies,
>Renowned for the length of their peenies.

Another possibility is that this is a reanalysis of Lat. _penes_, the
straightforward plural of the 3rd declension noun _penis_.  (Macrons
omitted out of delicacy, since length is variable.)

L

>The hair on their balls
>Sweeps the floors of their halls,
>But they don't look at women, the meanies.'
>- G. Legman, 'The Limerick', Les Hautes Etudes, Paris, 1953, No.244
>