groupie slang (1969)

[Jonathon Green]

Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: groupie slang (1969)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On 1/17/06, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Ah, yes. Groupies were big news in 1969.  Anyway, the glossary is clearly British,
>> as were the earliest groupies to make news here.
>>
>
> No, the groupies were Americans, from New York. But they talk for a
> while about the British bands who came through NYC and their sexual
> predilections -- hence "randy" and "w(h)ank off".
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>
>
The UK had their own groupies; my friend Jenny Fabian even wrote a
bestselling autobiography - yes, in 1969, and called _Groupie_ - from
which the OED took a number of citations (notably the rhyming slang
_plate_ [of meat = eat] for fellate, her use of which as I recall
rendered the British press near-hysterical - she being a [British]
public schoolmaster's daughter). As for wank/whank, it seems to have
emerged from the British troops of World War II - Partridge has it in
his _Dict. Forces' Slang_ (1948). The 'whank' spelling is found (along
with 'whanker's doom': the fate of an excessive mastrubator) in Paul
Tempest's prison glossary _Lag's Lexicon_ (1950). My belief is that it
was indeed British bands who took it to the States, and I seem to
remember seeing it used by one of the interveiwed girls in the then
celebrated _Rolling Stone_ 'Groupie Issue' (No 27?) which was the first
to be distributed in the UK. Again 1969.

Etymologically I am not sure about 'whack'; it obviously fits into the
wide range of terms that equate masturbating with '_beating_ one's
meat', etc, etc. but _whack (off)_ is very rare in the UK, and on the
basis of my cites (Jon L. will possibly trump them) is a 1950s+ coinage.
My own choice is the late 18C Scots 'whank', to beat, to thrash. Though
whether Partridge's military masturbators were from Scottish regiments,
I cannot say.

JG

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