I Love Little Pussy

[Ronald Butters]

Jonathan, please do a Google search for "I love my pussy cat." There are many, many examples among the 51,000 hits of adults using this phrase about their feline pets in a totally innocent way.

There are other examples of women using "pussycat" to refer to their boyfriends in a totally positive way.

I agree that "pussy" without "cat" is likely to be problematical unless the context is totally clear (and probably archaic: Ding dong bell). That is obviously why the children's song was changed to "kitty." (Just as people stopped saying "coney" and started saying "rabbit"?)  But not "pussycat."

I wonder if Streisand will start singing, "Isn't it strange, isn't it weird, you on the ground, me in the air"?

On Mar 11, 2012, at 4:00 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> Truly pathetic.
>
> These exx. are either from many years ago or entirely irrelevant (like
> Pussy Galore, who was not a feline).  And if "pussy" is always accepted as
> innocent, why wasn't it "Josie and the Pussies"?
>
> _Pussy_ 'coward; weakling' has strongly sexual/sexist overtones and always
> has, in my experience. That's not to say that some benighted souls don't
> derive it from "pussycat." But it will be a long time before you hear a
> public figure use it before a crowd, IMO.  ("Wimp," of course, is fine.)
>
> To restate the point: it is no longer customary in my experience for adults
> to refer to cats affectionately (at least within the hearing of other
> people) as "pussies" or "pussycats." The words they prefer are "kitties"
> and "kitty-cats."  Or "puddies" or  "puddy-tats."
>
> For obvious reasons.
>
> Ask a vet.
>
> JL
>
> On Sun, Mar 11, 2012 at 3:46 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: I Love Little Pussy
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> ... as is Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965) where I watched it not
>> six months ago.
>>
>> There's also the absolutely awful Pussycat, Pussycat, I Love You (1970)
>> and the silly Josie and the Pussycats (2001) which is usually played on
>> regular cable channels, such as TBS, not the "classic" ones. A number of
>> French, German and Japanese films were also translated with "Pussycat"
>> in the title, but that's secondary.
>>
>> And don't forget cartoons, particularly Pizzicato Pussycat.
>>
>> As for straight "pussy" puns, aside from Are You Being Served ("It
>> appears Mrs. Slocum has lost her pussy"), there is also the skit in one
>> of the Austin Powers movies (perhaps even more than one)--which is a
>> direct riff on Bond (and not just Pussy Galore--"Right idea, wrong
>> pussy, Mr. Bond.").
>>
>>    VS-)
>>
>> On 3/11/2012 3:14 PM, Ronald Butters wrote:
>>> ...
>>> What's New, Pussycat? was a 1965 film that is surely still seen on TCM.
>>>
>>> ...
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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