A reader who goes by dw alerted me to this classic New York Post headline:
I have given a lot of thought to wanker, always deciding that it had not really gotten sufficient traction in the U.S. to be a full-fledged entry in this blog. I still think that’s the case, but maybe the Post–which is, of course, an Aussie production–will prove to be the tipping point.
I await your definition with bated breath…..
When I was a young chap at a publishing house in NYC in the early 1980s, an even younger (entirely American) chap fresh out of Brandeis washed up at my door and used the word “wanker” so freely that it never occurred to me it might be a recent import from the U.K. Today, 30 years later, it seems to me, it can’t really be thought of as a RECENT import under any circumstances.
One can distinguish between the verb “wank” (meaning masturbate) and the derived noun “wanker” (literally “one who masturbates” but usually an insult roughly equivalent to American “jerk”).
The NY Post headline uses the verb “wank” with its literal meaning, which is something I don’t think I’ve seen much in American English before — certainly not in a headline!
Thanks, dw, for taking care of the defining duties. George, I wonder what became of your Brandeis mate; he was operating at a truly impressive level of pretentiousness. Definitely, “wanker” is not a recent import–it’s just that it has traditionally been the province of anglophile, well, wankers.
I first heard the term “wanker” back in the late 70s while attending Journalism School at The Ohio State University. I knew the instant I heard the term that it was not US English, so I asked my friend where he learned it. He said from a friend. I met his friend the next night at a party, and he was most decidedly British — and then I knew. I have always considered this a British term ever since then, and I rarely use it.
So I have a laugh every time I see that headline from the NY Post. Not over-the-top in that case — but a nice, welcome play on words.
Do you think the Post had any idea how offensive this word is in British English? The British press are pretty liberal with mild British swearwords, but this could never hit the shelves here!
Certainly not a word used in polite conversation anywhere….my Scottish friends tell me it is a way of calling someone a “Jack off” in the worst sense and a “Jerk” in the mildest form…again….not for use in civil sentences….
A real coffee on moment screen. There were jokes about his porn stash in the British media, but I don’t think this formulation occurred… presumably due to our not dropping the terminal Gs.
It might have worked for Saddam. “Saddam, Saddam’s got an oil tanker. Saddam, Saddam’s a… great big threat to international security”. At the time of the Lewinsky scandal, there were jokes about BJ receiving a BJ.
The etymology seems to be as a cognate of the contemporary Greek malakoi which means similar, and hails from Biblical Greek μαλακοὶ (as seen in 1 Cor 6:9).
There’s a mountain in southern Germany called Wank, which should arouse (hoho) as much hilarity as the hill Maidan’s Pap near to where I live.
Relocating to the US in the mid-eighties I was intrigued, watching “Married with Children” to hear Peg referring to her kinfolk back in Wanker County, You could never have got away with this on an early evening comedy in UK, but the audience just laughed along as if “wanker” meant a hillbilly or (as we might say) a swedebasher.
I still don’t know. What does wanker actually mean in the US? And is there a verb ” to wank”?
“I still don’t know. What does wanker actually mean in the US? And is there a verb ” to wank”?”
“Wanker” means nothing in American English, but many Americans are familiar with the British meaning and already were even back in the late 1980s. The name was a sort of in-joke by the writers. They could use it in the rhyme “Peggy Wanker … don’t bother to thank her,” which played off Peg’s supposed sluttiness in high school and which everybody understood. Meanwhile, a subset of the audience also got the British slang reference, making the joke doubly funny to them.
“To wank” is also not an American word, but it’s becoming very familiar to Americans and is creeping into American speech. In American English (perhaps not in British English), it is less vulgar than many of the slang terms for “masturbate” and is shorter than the cutesy-poo expressions people invent to avoid having to choose between the vulgar “jerk off” and the clinical “masturbate.” Thus, it serves a useful purpose.
I think bugger is even more commonly used, but with far less sense of what it means in British. Cute little bugger, etc. Then there’s our mispronunciation of solder that gets Brits cringing, or laughing.