Where Does it Come From?

[shanmonster]

Here is the scenario:

George goes for a walk, determined to ask Alice out to the prom. She's just a few houses away. But then it starts to rain. He turns around and goes home, because she probably didn't want to go out with him, anyway.

George is a pussy.

What is the origin of the term "pussy" in this example? Some people say it comes from pejorative use of vagina slang, but I'm not so sure of that. I think it has more in common with calling someone a "scaredy cat" or "chicken," neither of which has overtly sexual overtones (ok, maybe "chicken" does, but not in this context).

Comments

Re: Pussy

[autumnlaughing.livejournal.com]

Awhile back I listened to a traditional-ballad-singers long diatribe about "pussy"... he claimed that there were no *cats* in (uh, England? Maybe Ireland or Scotland.) until fairly recently, and the pet of choice was, instead, the bunny. Now, bunnies have much more (visually) in common with (un-shaven) female genetalia, and *that* was how that meaning came about. This was the lead-up for a song about hunting rabbits..

Of course, he was a folk-singer, and got paid to tell a good story, so take that with a pound of salt!

Of course, cats will acctually fight, even the lazy ones.. but you really, really have to corner a rabbit before it remembers it has *claws* on it's powerful hind legs.

Re: Pussy

[curtana.livejournal.com]

Well, the bit about there being no cats in England/Scotland/Ireland/whichever until recently is certainly not true. Rabbits (kept as food and fur, not pets, btw) weren't introduced to England until after the Norman conquest. There is no word for "rabbit" in the older Celtic or Germanic languages, whereas we have OE catte, Welsh and Cornish cathe, etc.

That said, "coney" (the older term for "rabbit", which originally meant only the young of the coney) is heavily linked to the word "cunt". Coney was pronounced "cunny" in some parts of the realm. As a term of endearment for a woman, it can be dated to 1528 (a poem by Skelton, in fact: "He calleth me his whytyng, his nobbes and his conny"). The more sexual meaning is only slightly later (for example, the 1622 phrase "No money, no coney").

Whether all of this has to do with a perceived resemblance between women's genitals and rabbits, or just a convenient combination of terms that sound alike is not certain, but it seems more likely to me to be the latter.

Incidentally, "cunt" is found in English from 1230 onwards (interestingly, first recorded in a London street-name, "Gropecuntlane"). It also ties in somehow with the words "cunning" and "quaint", but I'm not enough of a linguist to say exactly how. :)

Re: Pussy

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think the singer was spinning yarns! Curtana already covered the issue about cats in England, so now I'll cover the gentle bunny theory.

My family used to raise rabbits for a few years, and I've found they (bunnies, that is) can be nasty, vicious creatures once they've reached puberty. Two of my males escaped their hutch one day, and when I got home, they'd had a bloody battle. Separating them was intimidating. One was missing his entire nose, and the other had had his nads bitten clean off. I've also been bitten and kicked by angry rabbits, so I know they're not quite as harmless as most people think they are.

Young/neutered rabbits tend to be gentler, though.

Re: Pussy

[autumnlaughing.livejournal.com]

yup, that'd be why I mentioned the source... I just figured that even if it wasn't right, it *did* make a good story :)

I was also thinking that while I've had cats, my only real experiance with rabbits has been a) a friend's pet, which was larger than I thought, and who's cage stank more than I thought a rabbit's would, and b) a yarn-spinner (literally) who attends a colonial-period craft day, and who has several angora rabbits that she spins from. They're pretty docile, but maybe they just like being petted!

The folk singer did talk about the coony-cunt connection as well :)