Johnson 'penis'

[Ron Butters]

There is a whole famous series of semi-obscene tee shirts that play off on
the double entendre of JOHNSON 'penis' and JOHNSON the brand name for an
outboard boat motor. The folks depicted on the tee-shirts are all white. When
I mentioned this semester that JOHNSON = 'penis' in AAVE, several of my
students cited the tee-shirts as evidence that JOHNSON = 'penis' is now
general American slang.

The first time I ever heard JOHNSON = 'penis' was from a working-class black
guy at a public meeting in Durham, NC; for him, JOHNSON seemed to be a polite
euphemism for 'penis'.