[Corpora-List] Numpties and bennies

[Ramesh Krishnamurthy]

Hi

The Bank of English has:

1.Query is "numpty|numpties"
>17 matching lines
>Corpus         Total Number of       Average Number per
>                Occurrences           Million Words
>
>sunnow               12                  0.3/million
>guard                 2                  0.1/million
>times                 2                  0.0/million
>indy                  1                  0.0/million

Here are the concordance lines:

>           but he can also be a right numpty as his bonkers plan to merge
>     also chose words like shoogly", `numpty" and even `keech". <p> 
> The Scottish
>it. He soon will when he reads this. NUMPTY. Who's the dumbest person at Rugby
>s True before you want to malkie the numpty who keeps putting it on? Add that
>    we can tan the world; the kind of numpty who puts a tenner on St Mirren to
>    wee bastard, yer Maj. He's a reet numpty. That's all right. I've 
> children of
>          The trouble kicked off when numpty Nicky spotted a fan in the front
>the campaign, though I see that some numpty, as they would say up here, wrote
>as the plaything of landed toffs and numpty placemen. <p> Sleaze and 
>the age of
>     impecunious sleaze merchants and numpty amateurs. Much wiser to pay top
>  Like I'm bothered, gaun take it ya numpties. Oh boo hoo." The owner of a 15
>        mad at being labelled nookie numpties. <p> Lovebirds Karen mccabe, 18,
>   in Smokey And The Bandit? <p> The numpties who run the Scottish parliament
>  more to them than to the financial numpties who crippled it, made it through
>  the movie Big -- because oversized numpties BROKE it. However, the one thing
>    N To (X) `art-school pretentious numpties", while Wire magazine 
> saw the new
>     formidable businessmen than the numpties who ran BSB. But like 
> BSB's before

There's obviously a Scottish connection in several of the lines.

I don't know of any specific association with Downs Syndrome.

2. Query is "benny|bennies"
1656 matching lines
Unfortunately I don't have time to look in detail at all the lines at 
the moment.

2.1 A few items of potential interest:

2.2 'Benny' (I presume the Crossroads - Brummie - character; I was 
greeted as 'Benny' by local kids when I first came to
Birmingham in 1984, because my wife had knitted me a woolly hat like his!)

>LAST week, I asked you to send in words like wazzock which were 
>around in the 70s
>but have little place in the over-aggressive 90s. My, my, didn't it capture
>your imagination! Here's a selection: Ruddy Nora, Gordon Bennett, the lurgy,
>you're such a Benny, bristols, knockers, bunk-up, bit of skirt, nancy boy,
>Jessie, duckie, cak, having a slash, what a swizz, you Gonk, who's blown off
>and my favourite, you and whose army?

2.3 You're dead right about the Falklands (what a memory!): I presume 
still the Crossroads character?

>May 1999 </dt> NOT BENNY: WIWIFI (When I was in the Falkland Islands) we were
>specifically ordered not to call Falkland Islanders `Bennies". They were then
>referred to as `Stills" -- still Bennies. This was also outlawed. 
>The islanders
>then became know as `Andies" -- and `e's still a Benny. -- J Smyth, Wing
>Commander RAF (Retd), BFPO 35.

2.4 There are no other lines for 'a benny'.

2.5 There are lines for 'bennies' meaning benzedrine:
>      by many `street names," such as bennies, uppers, wake-ups, cartwheels,
>           such as amphetamine itself bennies), dextroamphetamine (dexies);
>   shots of whiskey, pop a handful of bennies, then tie up, smoking a joint at
>moral certainties as he overdoses on bennies, kidnaps his own baby, robs a
>      shrugged. `Sure.' You need some bennies? I got bennies.' Nah.' Smoke,
>  Sure.' You need some bennies? I got bennies.' Nah.' Smoke, right? I got some
>  voice was trembling with something. Bennies? A hit of crack? 
> Spider didn't do
>   beer and cocktails called Heavenly Bennies mixed by the 
> poetry-writing barman

2.6 one or two for 'benefits' (I presume) [both from USA sources]:
>>      about Minneapolis, pension, and bennies. I'd like to go 
>> somewhere warmer
>>out some way to transfer pension and bennies," Domeier said. `You know,

2.7 One or two for 'Benson and Hedges' cigarettes:
>  in the right-hand side of his body. Bennies win, because they have a `nice
>             around the filter of the Bennies which reminds us of 
> our mortality

2.8 one in the name of a cocktail:
>There were parties, dinners and receptions galore. We played roulette in the
>casino, drank Indian Tiger beer and cocktails called Heavenly Bennies mixed by
>the poetry-writing barman of the Oberoi, who had learned his trade at the Ritz
>before the second world war. <p> We dined on borscht and stroganoff at the Yak


2.9 Don't know the usage, and no evidence for it in Bank of English:
>>KCE 7007 so she had a bit of a benny it was
>>KCE 7260 I hadn't had a benny for a few days actually
>>KCE 7258 Not that I ever have major bennies or anything

Best
Ramesh

At 12:06 06/12/2006, Harold Somers wrote:

>A colleague has just emailed me suggesting that the word "numpty" has
>become non-PC because of its association with Downs syndrome. I've never
>made that association ... Has anyone else?
>
>A trawl of the standard "references" suggests that numpty is a Scottish
>slang word (meaning 'idiot' or 'incompetent person') and is being
>considered fro inclusion in the next edition of the OED; but
>interestingly its total absence from the BNC suggests either that it has
>only recently entered the language, and/or that Scottish English is
>under-represented in the BNC.
>
>Would I be right in thinking that the word is entirely unknown in AmE?
>
>On a similar theme, I was thinking about the word "benny", a slang term
>which had a brief life in BrE. With the same meaning as numpty, its
>etymology is a character in a soap (Crossroads I think) called Benny who
>was "intellectually challenged". I seem to remember a news article
>during the Falklands War in which soldiers were being admonished because
>their slang word for Falkland Islanders was "bennies".
>
>"A benny" occurs twice in the BNC, both times in the same source (KCE -
>a conversation recorded by `Helena' (PS0EB)) as follows:
>
>KCE 7007 so she had a bit of a benny it was
>KCE 7260 I hadn't had a benny for a few days actually
>
>Helena also talks about "bennies":
>KCE 7258 Not that I ever have major bennies or anything
>
>I'm guessing that here she means a "benzedrine" tablet, though that
>interpretation doesn't really fit the syntax (a bit of a benny, major
>bennies). Anyone any idea what a benny is in this context? (Perhaps the
>surrounding text can help - what is the topic of the conversation?).
>
>There's one other occurrence of "bennies" in the BNC, from "Skinhead" by
>Nick Knight, the meaning of which I think is "Ben Sherman shirts"
>ARP 213 Most skinhead girls, sometimes called rennes, would wear
>bennies, button-fly red tags, white socks and penny loafers or monkey
>boots.
>
>
>Harold Somers

Ramesh Krishnamurthy

Lecturer in English Studies, School of Languages and Social Sciences, 
Aston University, Birmingham B4 7ET, UK
[Room NX08, North Wing of Main Building] ; Tel: +44 (0)121-204-3812 ; 
Fax: +44 (0)121-204-3766
http://www.aston.ac.uk/lss/staff/krishnamurthyr.jsp

Project Leader, ACORN (Aston Corpus Network): http://corpus.aston.ac.uk/ 
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