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Here is the scenario:
![[What's new, pussycat?]](https://p2.dreamwidth.org/038a6f9e2863/2919457-3000/www.bigfoot.com/~ShanMonster/2003/kitty.gif "[What's new, pussycat?]")
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).
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).
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Pussy
Date: 2003-01-19 08:03 am (UTC)From:You seem to be right that "pussy" as a term for someone who is weak or cowardly is separate from its use as a slang word for cunt.
"Pussy" was first used in print in the sense of 'vagina' in 1880, although it didn't show up often in print until the 1960s (unsurprisingly).
"Pussy" meaning weak, effeminate or cowardly was actually several decades earlier, and it could refer to either a man or a woman who exhibited these qualities. The metaphor is indeed something like 'scaredy cat', but perhaps more along the lines of a cat's soft fur than its behaviour. It's found in roughly this sense in Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), which is, I suppose, where it would have received a wide readership, but first appeared in something called "American Pioneer" in 1842, which contains the line, "I walked up very carelessly among the soldiers..and concluded they could never fight with us. They appeared to me to be too pussy." Note that here 'pussy' is used as an adjective, not a noun. It's clearly American in origin, from these two quotations, though it was used by Dickens in 1870.
Of course, what we'd really like to know is when 'pussy' (cunt) started to appear in speech, since this could have been decades earlier than its first appearance in print, especially in the Victorian era.
Finally, I suspect that when it's used today, most people associate it with genitalia as much or more than they do with cats, which of course has nothing to do with its original etymology but does reflect on how people perceive it today.
Re: Pussy
Date: 2003-01-19 08:17 am (UTC)From:People just have dirty minds. They want to believe words go by the naughtier meaning.
It also happens to the term "sucks," as in, "Well, this really sucks!"
I believe Sheelagh Rogers was called to task for using this "vulgar" word on CBC, but she brought in some wordy folks who proved she wasn't being risqué at all.
Re: Pussy
Date: 2003-01-19 08:40 am (UTC)From: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
Date: 2003-01-19 09:23 am (UTC)From: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
Date: 2003-01-19 09:36 am (UTC)From: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.
no subject
Date: 2003-01-19 10:20 am (UTC)From:Ta!
no subject
Date: 2003-01-19 10:23 am (UTC)From:Glad to amuse!
Re: Pussy
Date: 2003-01-20 07:16 pm (UTC)From: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 :)