"Fanny"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Unpersuasive.

JL

On Sat, Dec 15, 2012 at 7:22 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Fwd: Re:  "Fanny"
>
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>
> I pass the following on (from a correspondent) for those who wish to
> consider whether Fanny Hill (1749) could have been the source of
> "fanny" = "female genitalia".  I have not analyzed the entry for
> "Frances", except to note that many dates cited are
> earlier.  Williams sees a "shift to the diminutive" in several
> instances in 1725 through 1745.
>
> "A dictionary of sexual language and imagery in Shakespearean and
> Stuart literature," by Gordon Williams (1994), pp. 540-541.
>
> ><
> http://books.google.com/books?id=2XtWDhgljvkC&pg=PA540&dq='Fannying+around'+faineant&hl=en&sa=X&ei=y_nMUKHBOIjjiwLI14HgDg&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
> >
> http://books.google.com/books?id=2XtWDhgljvkC&pg=PA540&dq='Fannying+around'+faineant&hl=en&sa=X&ei=y_nMUKHBOIjjiwLI14HgDg&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
> >
>
> Joel
>
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