Hanky Panky

Pelle Thomsen

2009-11-29 10:27:49 UTC

Post by El Chino
Jeg undrer over uttrykket "Hanky Panky". Etter det jeg har funnet ut
kommer det fra boken "Erewhon Revisited" av Samuel Butler (1901).
Hanky og Panky var i denne boken to professorer (eller var de apostler?)
Men hvordan ble disse personene tilknyttet til det vi legger i uttrykket
"Hanky Panky" i dag? Hva er historien bak? Noen som vet?

Hanky panky, origin:
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/168950.html

This is one of those nonsense terms that was just made up as having
an attractive alliteration or rhyme, like 'the bee's knees', 'the
mutt's nuts' etc. The words themselves have no inherent meaning.

The term is first recorded in the first edition of 'Punch, or the
London Charivari', Vol 1, Sept, 1841:

"Only a little hanky-panky, my lud. The people likes it; they loves
to be cheated before their faces. One, two, three—presto—begone.
I'll show your ludship as pretty a trick of putting a piece of money
in your eye and taking it out of your elbow, as you ever beheld."

The second meaning has been with us since the middle of the 20th
century, as here from George Bernhard Shaw's Geneva, 1939:

She: No hanky panky. I am respectable; and I mean to keep respectable.
He: I pledge you my word that my intentions are completely
honorable.Hanky panky