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In two separate recent threads:
quote:
nancy boy: a slightly dated insult calling someone effeminate or homosexual.
namby-pamby: the British usage would be more akin to weak, half-hearted or ineffectual.
Careful distinctions: What sort of thing could be called one but not the other, or the other but not the one?
 
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<Asa Lovejoy>
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I suppose if you weren't sure you were a nancy boy you'd be namby-pamby.
 
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quote:
nancy boy: a slightly dated insult calling someone effeminate or homosexual.

Being a Nancy in real life, I object! To whom can I write a mean letter? Wink

"Nancy" comes from the Hebrew name "Ann," which means "grace." Apparently "Nancy" was a nickname until the 18th century. I couldn't believe the dearth of famous Nancys on that site: Nancy Reagan, Nancy Kerrigan, and Nancy Mitford. Roll Eyes

The online OED says that nancy boy was first used in 1927. They called it a synonym of "fairy" and "poof." Poof??? Then they mentioned "Toto fellow???"
 
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<Asa Lovejoy>
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There's a whole town in France called Nancy! Ain't no Jessicas or Buffys!
 
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quote:
Originally posted by Kalleh:
quote:
nancy boy: a slightly dated insult calling someone effeminate or homosexual.

Being a Nancy in real life, I object! To whom can I write a mean letter? Wink

"Nancy" comes from the Hebrew name "Ann," which means "grace." Apparently "Nancy" was a nickname until the 18th century. I couldn't believe the dearth of famous Nancys on that site: Nancy Reagan, Nancy Kerrigan, and Nancy Mitford. Roll Eyes

The online OED says that nancy boy was first used in 1927. They called it a synonym of "fairy" and "poof." Poof??? Then they mentioned "Toto fellow???"


Poof is another common offensive term for male homosexual over here, maybe the commonest. It's still in current use. I never heard the term "toto fellow".


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Have other Americans heard of "poof?" What is the origin of that?
 
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Just to confuse things further, here in the NE of England it's "puff"! As in "Yu caalin me a puff?"!
 
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I first heard poof back in the early '70s: Monty Python's Flying Circus when it was first run on PBS in the States. There's also an augmented form, pooftah (sp?).


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
 
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"poof?" What is the origin of that?
here in the NE of England it's "puff"!
OED says that 'poof' probably is is a corrupted form of 'puff'. This would imply that 'puff' in this sense predates 'poof'. The difficulty is that it does not appear until almost half a century after.
 
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There's also an augmented form, pooftah (sp?).
I have seen it spelt like that, but probably the more common spelling is poofter.


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"Nancy boy" is used in Harry Potter. The first book, Uncle Vernon Dursley said he didn't want his "ickle Dudders" to be a "nancy boy".


I didn't realize panbies were "nanby". I always thought it was mamby.


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quote:
Originally posted by Erik Johansen:
Just to confuse things further, here in the NE of England it's "puff"! As in "Yu caalin me a puff?"!


But don't you pronounce it in exactly the same way?

Anyway, my favourite euphemism for this came up recently when an aquaintance was asked whether he had a wife. He replied, "No, No, No. I bat for the other side."
 
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I first became aware of "poofter" while listening to a CD of The Cories, a Scottish group, singing their great takeoff on "Ghost Riders in the Sky," "The Portree Kid," the last line of whose refrain sounds like "The pooftah, 'e came fra' Skye."
A friend from the UK had to translate that for us.

"Nancy Boy" I think I've seen in British novels, but can't cite any examples. Maugham? Forster? I always take that one to mean "homosexual."

Another term that seems outdated, but that I've heard in the states, is "pantywaist." I think this one can mean either just effeminate or homosexual.

Then, there's "light in the loafers." Don't know where that one comes from.
 
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I've seen "pantywaist" in American books, but it's not used over here. I, too get the impression it's outdated slang; an author like Mark Twain might have used the expression. I hasten to add I don't recall him ever having used it, though.

I've never heard of "light in the loafers".


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The few times I've heard "panty-waist" in the wild, it was an intentional archaism. Pretty much like nancy boy and namby-pamby.


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
 
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"Nancy boy" was still going strong here until around the 1950s or 1960s. "Namby-pamby" still in (irregular) use. There's not really a satisfactory alternative for the phrase, particularly if you don't particularly want to insinuate homosexuality. Remember, women can be namby-pamby, too! Cool


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"Namby-pamby" is equivalent to "wishy-washy" in my understanding. Passive, Milquetoast-ish. Could also be light in the loafers, but more likely just totally without spine.
 
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I didn't mean to imply that all three were synonymous, but that they were all equally archaic or old-fashioned.


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
 
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quote:
Originally posted by zmjezhd:
I didn't mean to imply that all three were synonymous, but that they were all equally archaic or old-fashioned.

Agreed. The only time I ever heard anybody use the term "pantywaist" in actual conversation was when a grumpy older man in my neighborhood referred to one of the neighborhood kids, a boy who cried easily, as "a kind of a pantywaist." I had to go home and look it up.
 
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Looking back at this thread, I expect 'toto fellow' comes from the same place as 'friend of Dorothy'.
 
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