Wenis

[Dave Wilton]

At my day job, we recently completed a short animated film (as a demo for
one of our products). One of the characters was originally named "Weenis."
The artist who named him says he came up with it on his own as a blend of
"wiener" and "penis." When I asked him yesterday, he said he was unaware of
the patch of elbow skin meaning.

The name of the character was changed to "Flint" at the last minute when
some execs objected to "Weenis."

-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
Douglas G. Wilson
Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 4:56 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Wenis

>Does anybody have chapter and verse on the history of "wenis", which seems
>to be US slang for the skin of the elbow (lots of Google hits).

Just my impression ... and I hope it's wrong and there's something
interesting here ....

Basically, "wenis" (= "wienis" = "weinis") means "penis" (presumably
with influence from "wiener"). I've seen this on the Internet for a
decade or so, I think (can't remember whether I've ever heard it in real
life).

"Wenis" has also been used, I don't know whether by many or not, to
mean a prosthetic penis, I guess a strap-on device maybe, presumably
< "w[oman's] + [p]enis". I see this at Google Books in a book by Jonathan
Ames.

"Wenis" = "elbow-skin" is probably basically some sort of prank or
hoax. I don't see it before 2003 at a glance. Nobody but nobody, I
think, uses this word without having "penis" in mind. The idea is to
give the word a factitious 'clean' meaning ... so that the teacher or
the censor 'can't object' when one talks loudly and publicly about
someone's 'wenis'. Cf. "pecker" ("It just means 'nose', honest!").

"Wenis" simply meaning "penis" is all over the Internet still.

I wonder whether "wenis" = "elbow-skin" was popularized in some movie
or TV program. It would be right at home on some of the programs I've
glanced at by mistake recently.

Something similar apparently appeared on the TV program "Friends":
'WENUS' and 'ANUS' as imaginary acronyms, around 1996: one can search
(e.g.) Google Groups <<wenus friends>>.

-- Doug Wilson



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