In the comics:

• (teacher, reading to high school class): "Over the next centuries the Vikings continued their raids on Irish villages ...
  usually making off with tons of booty."
• (class erupts in hysterical giggles)
• (student, retelling the incident later): and at that point, Mrs. Framption's world history class was pretty much over. She was later treated for acute cluelessness.

How did the word booty come to have two such disparate meanings?

How did the word booty come to have two such disparate meanings?

One or another of the theories. I first heard booty used in this sense back in the late '70s courtesy of Frank Zappa's album, Sheikh Yerbouti.

I hadn't realized that "booty" can mean "sexual intercourse" and "vulva or vagina." I have only seen it used to mean buttocks, as in "shake your booty!"

By the way, Wordnerd, don't forget about the baby's booty. They shake their "booties," too.

I had assumed that it was just the diminutive of "butt".

In the UK "booty" means only swag (stolen goods). I can't think of any exact synonym and I fear, like other perfectly good words without any precise synonym (gay, fag, hooter) it seems destined for oblivion in the half-world of smuttiness - in the USA anyway.

Quote: In the UK "booty" means only swag
Not so (recent UK press sightings [citings?] listed below), but I sense that this "buttocks" usage is a good deal less common in the UK than in the US.

Sky News, UK: see many more stars rocking their booty
Ministry of Sound, UK: playing a psychedelic stew of booty shaking music
the-raft.com, UK: get everyone's booty shakin'
Times Online, UK: can really act, as well as shake her booty.
Times Online, UK: a booty-shaking demonstration
Independent, UK: some good booty (the pirate kind, not the ass kind)

I think the phrase "shake your booty" and minor variations has become moderately common with the younger British folk, presumably from the influence of American pop songs and TV. We probably wouldn't readily use it as a synonym for "bottom", though. Not being a younger British person any more, I can't be sure, however.

The term "booty call" means visiting a person for the sole purpose of having sex.

quote:

The term "booty call" means visiting a person for the sole purpose of having sex.

A US expression that hasn't become popular here. We would tend to say, "would you like to/can I come round for coffee/a drink". And if sex were not on the agenda of both the participants, then one or other would add an additional sentence as a caveat, "And I only mean coffee/a drink".

My literal mind would prefer the US system but I can't see it catching on here :-(

Richard, my sense is that on this side of the pond, 'booty call' would only be used in speaking to a third party, and not in making a proposition to "the object of one's [intended] affections".

I do not speak from personal experience, you understand, and I trust the same is true of you!

quote:

I do not speak from personal experience, you understand, and I trust the same is true of you!

Of course. I have led an unblemished life (I regret to say).

quote:

would only be used in speaking to a third party, and not in making a proposition

Indirct language being preferred in the latter case:

Though a Lady repels your advance, she'll be kind
As long as you intimate what's on your mind.
You may tell her you're "hungry"; you need to be "swung";
You may ask her to "see how your etchings are hung";
Or mention the "ashes that need to be hauled";
"Put the lid on her saucepan"; even "lay"'s not too bald.
But the moment you're forthright, get ready to duck,
For the girl isn't born yet who'll stand for "Let's f___".

See also Update #2 on Language Log

Regarding "booty", pirates and swashbucklers the world over are hanging their heads at the changing meaning of their treasure(d) word, as did my ancient grandmother when she understood she no longer was able to use the word "gay" to mean lighthearted and happy.
As for words referring to the gluteus maximus, a bum is a homeless person in the USA, and would also possess one in the UK. As for "fanny ", let's just NOT GO THERE.

quote:

As for "fanny ", let's just NOT GO THERE.

That's an offer I can't refuse.

I'm told that my grandmother, whose given name was Fanny, bemoaned what had happened to what had been a perfectly good name. Apparently the change is fairly recent, and the current meanings differ in the US and the UK. From Etymology Online:

"buttocks," 1920, Amer.Eng., from earlier British meaning "vulva" (1879), perhaps from the name of John Cleland's heroine in the scandalous novel "Fanny Hill or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure" (1748). The fem. proper name is a dim. of Frances. The genital sense is still the primary one outside U.S., but is not current in Amer.Eng., which can have consequences when U.S. TV programs and movies air in Britain.

My son was born in 1994. Unbeknownst to me, the "shake your booty" songs that I'd danced to in the 70's had morphed while I was busy elsewhere. I, like many people, thought that "booty" was just another (and rather cute) term for butt. I didn't become enlightened until a sign was posted at his preschool saying "booty is inappropriate language for our children. Please discourage them from using the term" or something like that. I was astonished! A bad word? When the teachers told me what it "really" meant in the slang of the day I about died! I guess I needed to be treated for acute cluelessness, too.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Caterwauller,

Oh, and Hic? Excellent poem.

Having been out of close contact with adolescents for a decade now, I need to be admitted to the ACU (Acute Cluelessness Unit) myself! How interesting that both "booty" and "fanny" are anatomically confused words.

Wordmatic

The old Jazz standard, "strutting with some Barbecue" meant, in the slang of the time, "dancing with a very sexy partner". And the "dancing" was generally of the horizontal kind

Not to mention "jelly roll", "rock and roll", and "lovin' spoonfull".

Jazz, as well as rock 'n' roll, was a slang term for sexual intercourse.

Many years ago National Lampoon published cartographic cartoons of the human body with its various parts sized in proportion to the number of funny words for that part. The figures had small heads, tiny hands, practically no arms or legs, narrow shoulders, and enormous breasts, genitals and buttocks.

I'd heard of jazz (jass) but not rock and roll.

Quote: Oh, and Hic? Excellent poem.

Thanks, CW! It has many more verses, and you can find it with a quick google.

Yup - Rock N Roll is still used, as far as I can tell, and I hear the kids talking about booty calls. . . . I also hear these terms:

hooking up
on call (always ready for . . .)
hangin'
shoop shoop
whoop whoop (I just wanna get some whoop whoop or "there's just sumthin' 'bout her whoop whoop" in a song by Cowboy Troy)
gettin' jiggy
got it goin' on

etc
Of course, if the Nice Library Lady knows the terms, they're probably already out of vogue.