Negative Nancies and other related musings

[Jonathan Lighter]

Also GI Joe and GI Jane.

I assume we're ignoring more abstract personifications like "John Q. Public"
and "John Law."

JL
On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 2:24 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Negative Nancies and other related musings
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> 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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