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Hi<br><br>
The Bank of English has:<br><br>
1.Query is "numpty|numpties"<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">17 matching lines<br>
<font face="Courier New, Courier">
Corpus Total Number
of Average Number per<br>
Occurrences
Million Words<br><br>
sunnow
12
0.3/million<br>
guard
2
0.1/million<br>
times
2
0.0/million<br>
indy
1
0.0/million</font></blockquote><br>
Here are the concordance lines:<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">
<font face="Courier New, Courier">
but he can also be
a right numpty as his bonkers plan to merge<br>
also chose words like shoogly", `numpty" and
even `keech". <p> The Scottish<br>
it. He soon will when he reads this. NUMPTY. Who's the dumbest person at
Rugby<br>
s True before you want to malkie the numpty who keeps putting it on? Add
that<br>
we can tan the world; the kind of numpty who puts a tenner
on St Mirren to<br>
wee bastard, yer Maj. He's a reet numpty. That's all right.
I've children of<br>
The trouble kicked off
when numpty Nicky spotted a fan in the front<br>
the campaign, though I see that some numpty, as they would say up here,
wrote<br>
as the plaything of landed toffs and numpty placemen. <p> Sleaze
and the age of<br>
impecunious sleaze merchants and numpty amateurs. Much
wiser to pay top<br>
Like I'm bothered, gaun take it ya numpties. Oh boo hoo." The
owner of a 15<br>
mad at being labelled nookie
numpties. <p> Lovebirds Karen mccabe, 18,<br>
in Smokey And The Bandit? <p> The numpties who run the
Scottish parliament<br>
more to them than to the financial numpties who crippled it, made
it through<br>
the movie Big -- because oversized numpties BROKE it. However, the
one thing<br>
N To (X) `art-school pretentious numpties", while Wire
magazine saw the new<br>
formidable businessmen than the numpties who ran BSB.
But like BSB's before</font></blockquote><br>
There's obviously a Scottish connection in several of the lines.<br><br>
I don't know of any specific association with Downs Syndrome.<br><br>
2. Query is "benny|bennies"<br>
1656 matching lines<br>
Unfortunately I don't have time to look in detail at all the lines at the
moment.<br><br>
2.1 A few items of potential interest:<br><br>
2.2 'Benny' (I presume the Crossroads - Brummie - character; I was
greeted as 'Benny' by local kids when I first came to <br>
Birmingham in 1984, because my wife had knitted me a woolly hat like
his!)<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">
<font face="Courier New, Courier">LAST week, I asked you to send in words
like wazzock which were around in the 70s<br>
but have little place in the over-aggressive 90s. My, my, didn't it
capture<br>
your imagination! Here's a selection: Ruddy Nora, Gordon Bennett, the
lurgy,<br>
you're such <u>a Benny</u>, bristols, knockers, bunk-up, bit of skirt,
nancy boy,<br>
Jessie, duckie, cak, having a slash, what a swizz, you Gonk, who's blown
off<br>
and my favourite, you and whose army? </font></blockquote><br>
2.3 You're dead right about the Falklands (what a memory!): I presume
still the Crossroads character?<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">
<font face="Courier New, Courier">May 1999 </dt> NOT BENNY: WIWIFI
(When I was in the Falkland Islands) we were<br>
specifically ordered not to call Falkland Islanders
<u>`Bennies</u>". They were then<br>
referred to as `Stills" -- still <u>Bennies</u>. This was also
outlawed. The islanders<br>
then became know as `Andies" -- and `e's still a <u>Benny</u>. -- J
Smyth, Wing<br>
Commander RAF (Retd), BFPO 35. </font></blockquote><br>
2.4 There are no other lines for 'a benny'.<br><br>
2.5 There are lines for 'bennies' meaning benzedrine:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">
<font face="Courier New, Courier"> by many
`street names," such as bennies, uppers, wake-ups, cartwheels,<br>
such as
amphetamine itself bennies), dextroamphetamine (dexies);<br>
shots of whiskey, pop a handful of bennies, then tie up, smoking a
joint at<br>
moral certainties as he overdoses on bennies, kidnaps his own baby, robs
a<br>
shrugged. `Sure.' You need some bennies? I got
bennies.' Nah.' Smoke,<br>
Sure.' You need some bennies? I got bennies.' Nah.' Smoke, right? I
got some<br>
voice was trembling with something. Bennies? A hit of crack? Spider
didn't do<br>
beer and cocktails called Heavenly Bennies mixed by the
poetry-writing barman</font></blockquote><br>
2.6 one or two for 'benefits' (I presume) [both from USA sources]:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">
<font face="Courier New, Courier"> about
Minneapolis, pension, and bennies. I'd like to go somewhere warmer<br>
out some way to transfer pension and bennies," Domeier said. `You
know,</font></blockquote></blockquote><br>
2.7 One or two for 'Benson and Hedges' cigarettes:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">
<font face="Courier New, Courier"> in the right-hand side of his
body. Bennies win, because they have a `nice<br>
around
the filter of the Bennies which reminds us of our
mortality</font></blockquote><br>
2.8 one in the name of a cocktail:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">
<font face="Courier New, Courier">There were parties, dinners and
receptions galore. We played roulette in the<br>
casino, drank Indian Tiger beer and cocktails called Heavenly Bennies
mixed by<br>
the poetry-writing barman of the Oberoi, who had learned his trade at the
Ritz<br>
before the second world war. <p> We dined on borscht and stroganoff
at the Yak</font></blockquote><br><br>
2.9 Don't know the usage, and no evidence for it in Bank of English:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">KCE 7007 so she had a bit of a
benny it was <br>
KCE 7260 I hadn't had a benny for a few days actually <br>
KCE 7258 Not that I ever have major bennies or
anything</blockquote></blockquote><br>
Best<br>
Ramesh<br><br>
At 12:06 06/12/2006, Harold Somers wrote:<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">A colleague has just emailed me
suggesting that the word "numpty" has<br>
become non-PC because of its association with Downs syndrome. I've
never<br>
made that association ... Has anyone else?<br><br>
A trawl of the standard "references" suggests that numpty is a
Scottish<br>
slang word (meaning 'idiot' or 'incompetent person') and is being<br>
considered fro inclusion in the next edition of the OED; but<br>
interestingly its total absence from the BNC suggests either that it
has<br>
only recently entered the language, and/or that Scottish English is<br>
under-represented in the BNC. <br><br>
Would I be right in thinking that the word is entirely unknown in
AmE?<br><br>
On a similar theme, I was thinking about the word "benny", a
slang term<br>
which had a brief life in BrE. With the same meaning as numpty, its<br>
etymology is a character in a soap (Crossroads I think) called Benny
who<br>
was "intellectually challenged". I seem to remember a news
article<br>
during the Falklands War in which soldiers were being admonished
because<br>
their slang word for Falkland Islanders was "bennies".<br><br>
"A benny" occurs twice in the BNC, both times in the same
source (KCE -<br>
a conversation recorded by `Helena' (PS0EB)) as follows:<br><br>
KCE 7007 so she had a bit of a benny it was <br>
KCE 7260 I hadn't had a benny for a few days actually <br><br>
Helena also talks about "bennies":<br>
KCE 7258 Not that I ever have major bennies or anything<br><br>
I'm guessing that here she means a "benzedrine" tablet, though
that<br>
interpretation doesn't really fit the syntax (a bit of a benny,
major<br>
bennies). Anyone any idea what a benny is in this context? (Perhaps
the<br>
surrounding text can help - what is the topic of the
conversation?).<br><br>
There's one other occurrence of "bennies" in the BNC, from
"Skinhead" by<br>
Nick Knight, the meaning of which I think is "Ben Sherman
shirts"<br>
ARP 213 Most skinhead girls, sometimes called rennes, would wear<br>
bennies, button-fly red tags, white socks and penny loafers or
monkey<br>
boots.<br><br>
<br>
Harold Somers </blockquote>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
Ramesh Krishnamurthy<br><br>
Lecturer in English Studies, School of Languages and Social Sciences,
Aston University, Birmingham B4 7ET, UK<br>
[Room NX08, North Wing of Main Building] ; Tel: +44 (0)121-204-3812 ;
Fax: +44 (0)121-204-3766<br>
<a href="http://www.aston.ac.uk/lss/staff/krishnamurthyr.jsp" eudora="autourl">
http://www.aston.ac.uk/lss/staff/krishnamurthyr.jsp<br><br>
</a>Project Leader, ACORN (Aston Corpus Network):
<a href="http://corpus.aston.ac.uk/" eudora="autourl">
http://corpus.aston.ac.uk/</a></body>
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