Amazingly confusing, seeing as it was a British film.
And then there’s the infamous 1749 sex book Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, by John Cleland.
'Twas many a boy’s first sex book in the days before porn.
(Fanny is a girl just entering her fifteenth year, and has just grown public hair a few months before, making her a nubile lass - nubile meaning of marriagable age, i.e. capable of having babies. This is for all those who keep arguing about the propriety of ogling “underage” females, a notion that was entirely foreign to our ancestors.)
From First Letter Part 1:
Fanny is not used except as a name, and the OED doesn’t list the word as slang for a vagina until 1879 and for backside not until 1929 and in the U.S. Makes me wonder if the book inspired the slang instead of the other way around.
I think “wanker” might get a special pass on the Simpsons because it has a strong secondary connotation of “wasting one’s time.” More akin to “mental masturbation” (or weedly-wee guitar solos) than to phrases like “pulling the pud” or “spanking the monkey,” which are really only used to mean literal masturbation, and which I can’t imagine flying on the Simpsons.
The only bit of British slang that from the OP that would have been foreign to me absent explanation was “the birds.” When I heard it on the Simpsons, I assumed “birds” was some sort of class or social group. Thankfully the Streets explains it quite nicely on Original Pirate Material – “around here, we say ‘birds’ not ‘bitches.’”
I think “wanker” might get a special pass on the Simpsons because it has a strong secondary connotation of “wasting one’s time.” More akin to “mental masturbation” (or weedly-wee guitar solos) than to phrases like “pulling the pud” or “spanking the monkey,” which are really only used to mean literal masturbation, and which I can’t imagine flying on the Simpsons.
The only bit of British slang from the OP that would have been foreign to me absent explanation was “the birds.” When I heard it on the Simpsons, I assumed “birds” was some sort of class or social group. Thankfully, the Streets explains it quite nicely on Original Pirate Material – “around here, we say ‘birds’ not ‘bitches.’”
I can only imagine your reaction if you happened upon the episode with over 150 instances of the word “shit” in 30 minutes.
First hand confirmation of the “pajero” bit here… Pajero IS the literal translation for “wanker”, at least in Southern South American slang…
not to mention the Chappelle show’s gratuitous(and unbeeped) use of the word ‘nigger’. I can’t believe they get away with that.
Simple. It’s not on the Family Channel. 
Regarding the word “fanny”, the movie Billy Eliot demonstrated nicely for me why this word could get by an American if it was used in British movie or TV show they saw.
In the movie Billy and the daughter of his ballet instructor are talking (I don’t remember the context very well) and she say “I’ll let you touch my fanny.” I knew what she meant, but if I didn’t already know the British meaning of the word I might easily assume she was talking about a different part of her anatomy.
I haven’t heard it used in any other british movies, but I imagine that it would slip by me if I didn’t already know. These sorts of words tend to be used without a lot of explanation.
On a related note, I totally missed the constant references to “tossers” the first time I watched the Full Monty. It wasn’t until a British friend explained it to me that picked up on it (he was appalled by “tossed salad” when he came to America).
I also have to concur with the people who say that “wanker” is generally known in the United States by plenty of people, but that it just isn’t particularly vulgar because it isn’t native. I’m sure there are peple who have never heard the word and that there are people who have heard the word but don’t know what it means, but I think most people who have heard the word know what it means.
Would you care for some jerked pork with that?
What the hell are you talking about? Anyone who who saw the first Austin Powers movie got an intro to basic cockney slang, including repeated use of the word “shag” in a perfectly obvious context:
“Shall we shag now or shag later?”
“I shagged her rotten, baby!”
If you didn’t know what “shag” meant before seeing an Austin Powers movie, you’d have to be some kinda doofus[sup]*[/sup] not to figure it out in five seconds or less.
[sup]*[/sup] A foolish or ignorant person.
Wait, are we talking about ‘tossed salad’ the leafy green dinner course, or ‘tossed salad’ the analingus euphemism?
Um, Space Vampire, I know this is a thread about swearing but there’s no need to shout at me and imply that I am ‘utterly ignorant.’ That is unwarranted rudeness and hostility which I would thank you to withdraw.
I agree that the reason Americans don’t consider these swearwords obscene is that they are like foreign language words. It’s a longer way of saying 'they don’t really count ‘cause we don’t use them.’
My question, rephrased, was if (as had been stated) that word was widely used to mean masturbation, with no alternative meanings given, how would those lines in the Simpsons make sense? For a double entendre to work there has to be a non-profane meaning too. So thanks Auntie Social for explaining the alternate use of ‘wank.’ I was ignorant of that - regretfully I am not familiar with every single US slang word.
Funnily enough a friend of mine used the word ‘wank’ today on her live journal, in the ‘extended guitar riff’ sense (which I’d also never heard of before. If I hadn’t read this thread I’d have wondered what she was on about!
mobo85 - perhaps I should have clarified further (I didn’t think I needed to). Though it was made in Britain, America is a much larger market and (like most British TV shows intended for future export) is made with an eye to an American audience. I was just really surprised to hear this word in a kids’ movie, and trying to think of reasons for it.
Spurious George - no, they kept the name, it probably helped ticket sales!
I bet a lot more Americans (particularly young Americans) know these words now thanks to internet nanny filters. You can’t use US swearwords on them, but British swearwords slip through, so if you really want to swear, wank*away!
*used in the US sense, of course
What are you talking about? People in this country occasionally use the word, especially older ones, and anyone who has ever read Dickinson or Shakespeare (which at least 90% of high school students do) have been exposed to the word - I certainly didn’t learn it’s meaning from british sitcoms. Wanker, shag, snog, and row are not mysterious words. Leave that honor to UK uses of slated and pants 
I think “wanker” is not so offensive in the US because we are really, really, really in touch (as it were) with our masturbating. Why would something like that be considered offensive?
You misunderstand my point- OBVIOUSLY, everyone could figure out from context what “shag” meant. But Mike Myers used the word in such a casual, light-hearted way, Americans tended to treat is as a light-hearted, comic word, NOT as a vulgar one.
That’s why American theaters didn’t think twice about putting the title “The Spy Who Shagged Me” on their marquees, while (I’ve read) many British theater managers were very reluctant to put that title on their marquees. Thanks to Mike Myers, Americans regard “shag” as a harmless, silly word. But an American kid who uses that word in England will find out quickly that most Brits find the word vulgar and inappropriate.
Two words can mean exactly the same thing while having very different connotations. Strictly speaking, the “F-word” means exactly the same thing as the Yiddish word “Schtup”- but no American television network would ever allow the F-word to be spoken on prime time, while a Jewish comic CAN say “schtup” without anyone batting an eyelash.
Now, I don’t know- MAYBE to an earlier generation of Jews, “schtup” might have been a truly vulgar word. But to most non-Jewish Americans, it’s become a light-hearted euphemism for having sex.
In the same way, “poop” means exactly the same thing as the “S-word,” but nobody takes offense when people say “poop.” If anything, people just giggle when they hear it. The S-word, on the other hand, will get censored every time.
Now, most Americans first learn about vulgar British expressions from British sitcoms or from comical movies. I first learned “bugger” from Monty Python, and I first heard “wanker” in “This Is Spinal Tap.” When you learn about a word or phrase in a comical context, you tend not to take it seriously, and you tend not to get offended by it.
The point of the joke is that Principal Skinner is so unhip and clueless that he doesn’t know the meaning of “wanker”. As others have said, we do know what “wanker” means in the U.S., it’s just not considered that offensive here. “Jerk” is also slang for “masturbate” but it’s very common and not considered offensive.
Can some Brit explain what is offensive about the term “bloody”? It has a legitimate, non-slang meaning. It has no sexual double-meaning like “pussy” does. Its long-forgotten historical meaning was as an abbreviation for the exclamation “God’s blood!”
Every time I’ve asked a Brit why it’s considered offensive, they can’t explain.
This is often assumed, and it has the added benefit of making sense, but it is apparently not the case. From the OED, bloody, def. B sense 2…
Which still doesn’t explain why it’s considered so offensive, but there you have it.
Regarding the reluctance of some British cinemas to put the title “The Spy Who Shagged Me” on the marquee – perhaps an analogous situation in the U.S. would be the problems reviewers had when the play Shopping and Fucking opened on Broadway…
I think it all depends on your audience. Some Americans are familiar with British slang, but the degree of that familiarity varies depending on factors like age, education, region, and so forth. I think it’s erroneous to characterize all or most Americans as being familiar with “wanker,” “shag,” “snog,” “row,” etc. The significant thing is these terms are not understood by all Americans in the same way that they would be understood by Brits.
I agree that most older Americans, and those who have read British literature, will recognize and understand terms like “row.” But they may not be as familiar with “wanker” or what its exact connotation is. Younger Americans will generally recognize what “shag” means, mainly because of Austin Powers. But you could question the depth of that understanding–to American ears, it doesn’t really mean “fuck” or (to use what I think is a more corresponding word) “screw”; it’s just one of Austin’s quaint phrases for casual sex to them.
Speaking for myself, as a thirty-year old grad student from the southeastern U.S., I had never heard words like “snog” or “naff” before I spent some time in London. It confused me when Comic Relief, in their “Pants to Poverty” campaigns, depicted what were clearly a set of underwear briefs. And I was really taken aback when I overheard a woman jokingly use the term (ahem) “c*nt” in reference to another woman.
But after a few months in the UK, I’d been exposed to these and other slang terms, and upon my return to the U.S. would annoy friends and family members by pointing out differences in American vs. British expressions.
I find American’s, when talking about numbers using their hands, will hold a number of fingers up showing the back of the hand as opose to in Britain where the palm will be facing the person we are talking to. Thus if a Yank is talking about having two of something they are being inadvertently rude.
Having encountered this so many times I’m guessing that most Yanks are ignorent of this etiquette.
For the history buffs this dates from the time of the English/French war. When the French captured English Archers they would chop the first two fingers off their hands so they would never be able to draw a bow again, the Longbow being the most devastating weapon in the English armoury. The English Archers would stand facing the French lines before battle holding up their hands with the two fingers extended going “Yahh, we’ve got our fingers nerrrrrrrrrr”.