Oh yes! I wonder if the Wimpy Big Bender still exists?
Yeah, going ‘straight’ has similar connotations to being ‘bent’ as far as criminality is concerned too. I figured it must have some sort of connection, because other derogatory slang like ‘queer’ has connotations of not being quite right, a bit strange. Or not ‘normal’, perhaps.
“This is the way the world ends: not with a banger, but a Wimpy.”
T.S., Eliot!
Ow.
Ah yes! The ads for the Wimpy “Big Bender in a Bun” used to cause me no end of amusement when I was younger and less mature. Do Wimpy even exist any more? I can’t remember the last time I saw one.
Yep, at least in this neck of the woods (south east), and they still sell Benders.
It meant that The Sun newspaper in the UK couldn’t resist running the headline “Mind Bender” when Derren Brown came out.
I believe the accepted term in the U.S. is now catcher (q.v., pitcher).
it’s so weird that bender means both homosexual AND alcoholic binge. you’d figure the natural progression of the brits using “bender” if they were to adopt the American use would be to have “going on a bender” to mean “going on a homosexual sex binge”