Surprising Meanings
Posted: Thu May 07, 2020 10:02 am
MM recently posted about the song Lavender is Blue
https://randombitsoffascination.com/201 ... ders-blue/
I love finding out about word derivations. So how about a thread dedicated to them.
I will start with the derivation of the expression Sweet FA
The full version of this is Sweet Fanny Adams.
Fanny Adams (30 April 1859 – 24 August 1867) was an English girl who was murdered by solicitor's clerk Frederick Baker in Alton, Hampshire, on 24 August 1867. The murder itself was extraordinarily brutal and caused a national outcry in the United Kingdom. Fanny was abducted by Baker and taken into a hop garden near her home. She was then brutally murdered and her body cut into several pieces, with some parts never being found. Further investigations suggested that two small knives were used for the murder, but it was later ruled they would have been insufficient to carry out the crime and that another weapon must have been used.
Used to express total downtime or inaction, the military, manual-trade and locker room talk phrase "sweet Fanny Adams" has been in use since at least the mid 20th century, vying with a stronger expletive.[n 1] Unusually, the phrase is not a bowdlerisation; "Fanny Adams" arrived in 1860s naval slang to deplore unliked meat stews. It broadened to mean anything badly substandard then further so as to merge with the expletive sharing its initial letters to mean nothing at all. The phrase also appears today as "sweet F.A."
Full story:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Adams
https://randombitsoffascination.com/201 ... ders-blue/
I love finding out about word derivations. So how about a thread dedicated to them.
I will start with the derivation of the expression Sweet FA
The full version of this is Sweet Fanny Adams.
Fanny Adams (30 April 1859 – 24 August 1867) was an English girl who was murdered by solicitor's clerk Frederick Baker in Alton, Hampshire, on 24 August 1867. The murder itself was extraordinarily brutal and caused a national outcry in the United Kingdom. Fanny was abducted by Baker and taken into a hop garden near her home. She was then brutally murdered and her body cut into several pieces, with some parts never being found. Further investigations suggested that two small knives were used for the murder, but it was later ruled they would have been insufficient to carry out the crime and that another weapon must have been used.
Used to express total downtime or inaction, the military, manual-trade and locker room talk phrase "sweet Fanny Adams" has been in use since at least the mid 20th century, vying with a stronger expletive.[n 1] Unusually, the phrase is not a bowdlerisation; "Fanny Adams" arrived in 1860s naval slang to deplore unliked meat stews. It broadened to mean anything badly substandard then further so as to merge with the expletive sharing its initial letters to mean nothing at all. The phrase also appears today as "sweet F.A."
Full story:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Adams