Poontang

[Wilson Gray]

On Jul 23, 2004, at 2:47 AM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
> Subject:      Poontang
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> --------
>
>>> Any connection between "pearltongue" and "poontang"?
>>
>> Probably not. The OED suggests French "putain" for the latter, which
>> sounds good to me. Also, "poontang" is - or, at least, was, back in
>> the
>> day - felt by blacks to be somewhat racist.
>
> I posted something on "poontang" a while back. The "putain" etymology
> seems
> OK to me too ... as a guess or conjecture. Apparently clear evidence is
> lacking and there are several other possibilities IMHO. I do not
> suggest
> "poontang" < "pearltongue".
>
> I have serious doubt as to whether "poontang" generally has/had any
> racial
> overtone at all. This is a little complicated and I won't go into it
> now.

Doug, you can't be serious! You know that there's not necessarily a
one-to-one and onto mapping between truth and what people believe!
Surely, you've heard of a phenomenon called "religion"!:-)

-Wilson Gray

>
> I have some records here. Here is "Poontang Little, Poontang Small"
> (on the
> CD entitled "Black Appalachia"), supposedly recorded in 1936:
>
> ----------
>
> <<Poontang little and poontang small,
> Poontang stretches like a rubber ball.
> Oh my babe, took my salty thing. ...
>
> <<Gonna hang my poontang from the fence,
> Oh, the man come to get it ain't got no sense. ....>>
>
> ----------
>
> Some of the lyrics are unintelligible. What does it mean?
>
> Here is "Oh! Mister Mitchell" sung by Clara Smith in 1929. The lyrics
> are
> generally quite clear:
>
> ----------
>
> <<Oh, oh, Mr. Mitchell, I'm crazy about your sweet poontang.
> Oh, oh, Mr. Mitchell, I'll tell the world that it's a whang. ....
>
> <<Your cherry pie is juicy, so is your jelly roll;
> But when you give me poontang I just lose control. ....>>
>
> ----------
>
> Here "poontang" is a confection supplied by Mr. Mitchell (a
> confectionery
> stand proprietor in Louisiana): the obvious interpretation IMHO (with
> double-entendre of course) is "poontang" = "sex", without gender
> specificity (let alone racial specificity). The date is about as early
> as
> the earliest conventional citation of the word. I have transcribed the
> entire lyrics, in case anybody's curious.
>
> -- Doug Wilson
>