Negative Nancies and other related musings

[Victor Steinbok]

Yes, I thought of Nervous Nellie right after I hit Send. It's one of
those head-slappers that creeps up on you when you write in the middle
of the night. I could not make a direct connection to a more generic use
of Nancy because I simply would not know how to look for that. But there
is another alliteration that comes to mind.

http://bit.ly/cl8NM9
Harper's Young People, Dec. 3, 1889. p. 83
"Nancy Pansy", by Thomas Nelson Page
> "Nancy Pansy" was what Middleburgh called her, though the parish
> register of baptism contained nothing nearer the name than that one of
> Anne, daughter of Baylor Seddon, Esq., and Ellenor his wife.

This story remained popular for the next 30 years. Of course, this ties
well with,

http://bit.ly/9wSDlo
> Nancy Pansy lived in a well,
> She brewed good ale for gentlemen ;
> Gentlemen came every day,
> Till Nancy Pansy ran away.
(1888, reprinted 2006)

Partridge has Nosey Parker and Nosey O'Grady and, of course, Nervous
Nellie. One of his definitions of "Molly" is "sodomite"--more
specifically (from Beale, 2002), "2. A sodomite: coll. 1709 (E. Ward);
ob. Cf. /pansy/. But ca. 1895-1914, a merely effeminate fellow was often
called a /Gussie/; in C.20, esp. after WWI, a sodomite is a /nancy/, a
/Nancy-boy/, or a /cissy/ (/sissy/), this last also applying to a
milksop." Similarly Miss Molly interchangeable with Miss Nancy, both
meaning "a milksop, an effeminate fellow". "Nancy" also pops up under
"queanie" (late C. 19-20th Aus.), apparently suggesting that Australian
"queanie" (not "queenie"!) was the equivalent of Nancy elsewhere. Can't
see the "Nancy" entry on-line. The "pansy/pansie" page is also not
shown. There is /no/ entry for "negative" anything.

MWCT (1993) has nancy, along with fairy, nance, pansy, queen and swish,
as related but not synonymous with homosexual--no separate entry under
nancy.

It is interesting that "nancy" was in use roughly before Page's story
was published and pansy became the operative term after it faded from
popularity--after WWI. I wonder if the turn-of-the-century Pansy
Societies changed their names in the 1920s.

That about covers all I got on "nancy".

     VS-)

On 3/20/2010 12:31 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> At 10:56 AM -0400 3/20/10, Alice Faber wrote:
>
>> "Nervous Nellie" is the phrase that comes to mind. Google reveals
>> citations as early as the 1920s but I can't figure out how to sort the
>> list to find the oldest.
>> --
>>
> Back in the Nixon era the administration was given to dismissing
> "nervous nellies" and "nattering nabobs of negativism" (the latter a
> phrase put into Spiro Agnew's mouth by Safire, who afterwards never
> let us forget it, and indeed it is a classic of its kind).
>
> I can't remember any Nancies from the period, but I wonder whether
> I'm not stretching too much to see in "negative Nancy" and "nervous
> Nancy" a possible allusion to the older use of "Nancy" (HDAS: 'a
> weak-willed, priggish, or effeminate fellow; sissy; specif. an
> effeminate male homosexual [as opposed to all those effiminate female
> homosexuals?}--usu. used derisively--usu. considered offensive', with
> cites back to the 19th c.
>
> LH
>
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>
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