Wiz
06-04-2002, 11:35
I have often been amused by the different meanings for words and phrases between American and English. You know, a fag in England means a cigarette, in the US, it does not. There are many others, I’ll knock you up about 7 am, in America, means that you’ll get the person pregnant and there are many others. However, I was a little surprised to see Sabrina the teenage Witch on the telly the other morning, dancing on a table, wiggling her arse and singing “Shake your funky fanny!” I had to listen very carefully to make sure that I was not hearing things, but no, that was indeed the message in the song. An American friend has since enlightened me to that fact that in the US, “fanny” is a very polite word for arse, rather like “bottom” in English. And suddenly an incident that happened some years ago in a pub became crystal clear.
I was sitting a pub with some friends when in walks a couple of Yanks. We were sitting on bench type seats and there were not a lot of places to sit so after they had got their beer, they walked up a bench with some young ladies on and said. “Excuse me miss, would you mind moving you fanny along a little for us.” Three people spat their drinks over the person sitting opposite them and the poor Yanks were told in very impolite terms to find somewhere else to sit. At the time, I just though that they must have been pissed and deserved what they got. We really need to look out for that one!
I was sitting a pub with some friends when in walks a couple of Yanks. We were sitting on bench type seats and there were not a lot of places to sit so after they had got their beer, they walked up a bench with some young ladies on and said. “Excuse me miss, would you mind moving you fanny along a little for us.” Three people spat their drinks over the person sitting opposite them and the poor Yanks were told in very impolite terms to find somewhere else to sit. At the time, I just though that they must have been pissed and deserved what they got. We really need to look out for that one!