What is the origins and dates of origin of the words “poontang” and “pussy whipped”? I first heard the former on a Ted Nugent album about 25 years ago, and I never heard that latter until a “Saturday Night Live” sketch maybe 15 years ago. I think these words are older than that, but I can’t confirm.
Don’t have a cite handy, but I believe “poontang” is a corruption of the French word “putain”, meaning “prostitute”.
“pussy whipped” is probably a metaphor - the notion of a woman using her, erm, vagina, or rather access to it, to control a man figuratively, just as if she were wielding a whip.
Poontang is (approximately) female genitalia or having sex with a woman. I have seen speculative etymology linking it to the French putain, prostitute.
It had a spate of currency during the Viet Nam war (which would seem to have reinforced the association with French), but the OED’s first citation is actually from Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward Angel, in 1929.
Pussy whipped is a coarse expression for hen-pecked or uxorious that has been extended to mean that any man (regardless of marital status) is afraid to “stand up” for himself in a relationship, due to fearing he will be denied sexual favors. It was a rather common term in the 1960s and the OED has a reference as early as 1956.
TomnDebbs’ definition of the terms are correct,tho don’t really know the etymology,but can state for a fact it appeared before '56,since as teenagers we used it and understood it’s meaning back then,tho in most of our cases the pussy whipping had litle to do with real poontang :)and I’m sure we picked it up from the older guys or paperbacks that were popular.See the movie ** Marty **.Those guys would have surely used it-if censorship wasn’t prevalent in those days.
<*hijack *> One phrase we used that was made up on the spot was wussy (from pussy wussy-an infantile term for the cat) to denote what we considered sissies.A more socially aceptable word,we thought,than saying “he’s a pussy”.
Did we actually create the morphed to “wuss”.That’s one I’d like to know.ca.'56-8
Well I used both wussy and wuss growing up. “Don’t be such a wuss.” or “He’s such a wussy.” To mean exactly the same thing as you described. And I grew up in the 80’s. I never heard of pussy wussy until now.
Poontang from French putaine, which derives from Vulgar Latin puttana, ‘a whore’. From Latin putta, ‘girl’, from Proto-Indo-European *puto, ‘vulva’… but the Proto-World linguistic hypothesis has traced words for ‘vulva’ or ‘vagina’ in many languages all over the world that go back to a reconstructed form *PUTI, so poontang just may be one of the oldest words in the English language, with a time depth of 200,000 years.
Remember “Shake Your Booty”? In some African languages buti means ‘vagina’ or ‘anus’, and this word is connected with Proto-World *PUTI. In Nepalese to this day, the word for ‘vulva’ is puti.
Interesting pop-culture note, just to show that Ted Nugent isn’t the groundbreaker you thought he was…
…POON is a hug!
TANG is a kiss!
I’ve been marooned on an isle in the South Pacific
Missing my loving each night
Now that I’m home I’ll go right
Out and get me some POON-TANG!
Now POON is a HUG…I wanted a hug so badly
I was blowin my tropical top
TANG is a kiss…I wanted a kiss so badly,
Want the POON-TANG never to stop!
I don’t wanna eat and I don’t wanna sleep
I got a yen that I’m dying to please
Till I get weak in the knees
Gonna get me that POON-TANG!
A-huggin and a-kissin…that’s POON-TANG!
A-huggin and a-kissin…that’s POON-TANG!
A-huggin and a-kissin…that’s POON-TANG!
POON-TANG!
POON-TANG!
Gonna get me some gonna get me some
POON-TANG!
– from “Poon-Tang!” recorded by the Treniers on the Okeh label, October 1952
This record was released along with a marketing gimmick: a food can labelled “THE TRENIERS: Extra Fancy Lower Alabama POONTANG. From the exclusive recipe of Miss Pussy Galore.”
(It’s worth noting that Ian Fleming’s novel GOLDFINGER was not published until 1959.)
Geez… I wonder how they got away with this? Was 1952 African-American R&B THAT far under the cultural radar?
I though MIke Damone covered this in Fast Times at Ridgemont High:
Ukelele Ike That is hilarious and thought-provoking!
Where did you come across it?
The Pussy Galore reference has to have led to Bond - too obvious to be coincidence.
As for how they got away with it - great question; maybe the censors simply didn’t get it. Think about Little Richard’s lyrics (even after he cleaned them up for Top 40):
Good Golly, Miss Molly - sure like to ball
When you’re rockin’ and a rollin’ - can’t hear your momma call
Like that can mean anything other than (what we know see as) the obvious…
May I just say that I find the word “poontang” rather disgusting sounding? I dunno, it’s just…ick.
It’s on the CD called They Rock! They Roll! They Swing! The Best of the Treniers. Legacy/Epic EK66800, released in 1995.
The booklet has all the production info plus lotsa photos, including one of the Poontang can, and one of Claude Trenier shilling for bourbon. (“I’m Claude…and I like the smooth mellow flavor of EARLY TIMES! Every ounce a man’s whiskey!”)
I’ve heard Little Richard sing “sure liked the ball,” as in a dance. And that seems to fit the song. I was born in 1961, so I’m too young to have first-hand knowledge, so was your version what was popularly understood?
Given that Tom Wolfe was using the word in a mainstream novel nearly 30 odd years before Nugent was born, I’m pretty sure that Ted was simply trying to get past his Top 40 censors with his “redefinition” of the words.
Or the Treniers, either.