The History of Slang
Can euphemisms teach us about cultural attitudes over time?
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This is a weekly newsletter from me, Dani Faith Leonard, a comedian and film producer. It’s an extension of the live comedy show ADULT SEX ED that I’ve hosted since 2018. The show is about plugging the holes in our education as adults, so I’ll be doing just that (if you want to know more about this newsletter, here’s a description on substack).
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Dani
The writers strike began yesterday, so I figured that this week’s newsletter should have a focus on language.
The history of slang has always fascinated me. For example, the word slut didn’t actually have its current meaning until the 1960s. The original meaning was just a woman who didn’t keep her house clean (which definitely makes me a huge slut at times).
Can we learn about the evolution of cultural attitudes about women, bodies and sex by exploring the history of slang? To find out, I did a deep dive on the history of euphemisms for the vagina (all the way back in 2019, and again for last week’s show in Houston). Luckily, I had a handy guide to look through: In 2013, British slang lexicographer Jonathon Green published a timeline of euphemisms. You can look through it for yourself here.
I looked through the timeline and here are my takeaways:
The timeline starts with a word much maligned and much celebrated – cunt. If you think it’s particularly edgy, please be advised that this slang term has been around since the 1200s and our moms have been yelling at us ever since.
If you thought that chasing tail was only something that bros on Entourage did, be aware that tail was slang for vagina since the 1300s. So it’s something that people in Geoffrey Chaucer’s entourage did. (Ok, I know that an Entourage reference seems out of date but a potential reboot was in the news last week. Turtle obviously works in crypto.)
My favorite slang term for vagina from the 1300s and possibly of all time is a quaint. It’s sounds so dainty and conveniently rhymes with taint! By the turn of the 16th century, things were a little less genteel and vaginas were often compared to receptacles:
trench, dock, oven, leather purse.
Later in the 1500s, we’ve reached our playground phase. Likely to get you kicked out of my bed are the words:
pleasure place, bung hole, nonny nonny
By the 1600s, vaginas sounded like they were named by Ariel in The Little Mermaid:
what-do-you-call-it, You know what, flapdoodle, crinkum-crankum
In the 1700s, this country’s founders were locking up ownership of the new nation, and people on both sides of the pond were super into real estate:
tenement, cock loft, cock lane
By the 1800s, the only thing that was clear was that the vagina was much enjoyed, but you might get trapped:
man’s pleasure garden, cock trap, pleasure pit, the enemy
The enemy?! In the 1900s and 2000s, many of the new slang names were rooted in entertainment, like:
stairway to heaven, breakfast of champions, orphan annie, WAP, and the batcave.
What’s crazy to me isn’t that someone called a vagina a golden doughnut and possibly still got laid. It’s how consistent the slang has been over time. While the euphemisms for a penis through time have been some kind of weapon or useful tool, vaginas have often been infantilized, or compared to receptacles, homes, or holes. The next time I refer to my own kitty as a hoo-hoo or hoo-ha or vajayjay, I’ll remember that penises that belong to adults aren’t infantilized in that way, unless as an insult. The most-often used penis euphemism that mimics a sound – dong – is a sound that a large, powerful thing makes.
Whether you like nicknames or not, the most important thing is that we get to name it ourselves. Maybe I’ll go with something strong, like Sigourney Beaver.
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I'm just reading a psychology book where the author talks about indirect communication. He opines that we use euphemisms for lots of things to say something and not say it at the same time, and that even the "proper" terms for our genitals aren't even English - they're Latin - as a result of our prudery.
I' note that even the Latin word "vagina" is also indirect, meaning "sheath, scabbard".