0bvious things you’ve only just realised (2019 edition)

[FredNurke]

As a term of abuse, it goes back to at least 1950, and as a term for a prophylactic possibly to the 1930s, although I can't immediately find anything with a secure date that's earlier than the term of abuse. But both are American slang, and I would have thought unlikely to have been in use in Birmingham, or the UK generally, before the 1970s when usage seems to spread outside the US.

[touchingcloth]

I've never watched Peaky Blinders, mainly because I can't see myself getting on with a programme whose title is a pun on cheeky blinders but with the word "peaky" instead. Are they little rascals but feeling slightly under the weather? I'll never know, the title and the hairdos I saw put me right off.

[Cuellar]

Is cos they put razor blades in the peaks of their caps then slice you eyes with them

[poodlefaker]

I don't recommend watching Peaky Blinders if you're easily offended by historical anachronisms, especially linguistic ones.

I remember when The Smiths started out it was reported that Johnny Marr had adopted his stagename to distinguish himself rom John Maher of Buzzcocks, and that it was a play on the French j'en ai marre (= I'm bored).

[gib]

I've never watched Peaky Blinders, mainly because I can't see myself getting on with a programme whose title is a pun on cheeky blinders but with the word "peaky" instead. Are they little rascals but feeling slightly under the weather? I'll never know, the title and the hairdos I saw put me right off.

I agree that the name is too shit to bother watching it but what is 'cheeky blinders' to which you refer?

[touchingcloth]

I agree that the name is too shit to bother watching it but what is 'cheeky blinders' to which you refer?

I think I'm actually thinking of "cheeky blighter" and other such things I can remember my grandparents and other older people using in my yoot instead of just calling a little cunt a little cunt.

[beanheadmcginty]

The Peaky Blinders were a real criminal gang though. So that's why it's called that.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Until about 3 hours ago I'd never seen Peaky Blinders (almost a hanging offence in itself in Birmingham) and they really do all have those haircuts. I knew they were called Peaky Blinders haircuts but I thought it was just that a main character had it in one series or something. Coming from it the wrong way round as I have it's weird seeing these supposedly 1930s blokes with what to me look like anachronistic hairdos (and someone said scumbag too which I doubt was in common use in the 30s.)

I know in Deadwood they deliberately used modernish swears as most of the stuff during that era was all biblical stuff that made everyone sound like Yosemite Sam.

[Ferris]

Is cos they put razor blades in the peaks of their caps then slice you eyes with them

Imagine that being the best you can come up with, and then basing your entire criminal enterprise around it. "We'll put some sharp bits in our hats". Pathetic.

[imitationleather]

The only sharp bit I put in my hat is my wit which comes out of my brain in my head. Yeah.

[NJ Uncut]

Nonce is an acronym!!

[Noddy Tomkey]

Nonce is an acronym!!

Can you tell me how please.

[JesusAndYourBush]

Imagine that being the best you can come up with, and then basing your entire criminal enterprise around it. "We'll put some sharp bits in our hats". Pathetic.

I've watched from the beginning and I think I've only seen them used twice.  Once was to cut someone and the other was something like "give me your blade" because a blade was required for something other than maiming someone.

[touchingcloth]

Is cos they put razor blades in the peaks of their caps then slice you eyes with them

The Peaky Blinders were a real criminal gang though. So that's why it's called that.

Imagine my surprise at learning that both of these posts are telling the truth.

Imagine that being the best you can come up with, and then basing your entire criminal enterprise around it. "We'll put some sharp bits in our hats". Pathetic.

I agree with Ferris.

[Ferris]

Can you tell me how please.

Not On Normal Courtyard Exercise. Because nonces in prison get got so they keep them in solitary.

I agree with Ferris.

Stick with me, won't go far wrong.

[Cuellar]

Not On Normal Courtyard Exercise. Because nonces in prison get got so they keep them in solitary.

I'd be very surprised if this was true, these things never are.

[Gulftastic]

I'd be very surprised if this was true, these things never are.

Aye, like 'Posh' and 'fuck'. Both featured in some shit British gangster film, where one of the main twats reels them off trying to sound clever.

[Cuellar]

I rue the day I lost access to the OED online. Someone here must have uni access to it. Someone look up nonce for us.

[Lordofthefiles]

I rue the day I lost access to the OED online. Someone here must have uni access to it. Someone look up nonce for us.

<'This Poster' link>

[Cuellar]

Oh wait I do have it through the public library!! BRB with nonce facts.

[Cuellar]

Forms:  19– nonce, 19– nonse.
Frequency (in current use): 
Origin: Of unknown origin.
Etymology: Origin unknown. Perhaps related to nance n. (see quot. 1984), or perhaps compare English regional nonse good-for-nothing fellow, recorded in Eng. Dial. Dict. Suppl. from Lincolnshire.(Show Less)
British Criminals' slang.
Thesaurus »
Categories »

  A sexual deviant; a person convicted of a sexual offence, esp. child abuse.
1971   S. Houghton Current Prison Slang (MS notebk.) (O.E.D. Archive) 8   Nonse, sexual offender against children, pariahs in prison.
1975   Time Out 3 Jan. 7/1   What he told Seven Days about his experiences as a sex offender in prison raises a number of urgent questions on the subject of treatment and attitudes to 'nonces', the term used for them by other prisoners.
1984   Police Rev. 18 May 975/3   Nonce, prison term for a child molester. The very bottom of the prison pecking order, the 'nonce' is usually segregated from ordinary prisoners at all times for his own protection. Originally derived from 'nancy-boy'.
1994   I. Welsh Acid House 8   I couldn't have done anything like that though, Jock, not to a little kiddie, that would make me no better than that fucking beast, that fucking nonce slag.

[Cuellar]

The 'nance' referred to:

Frequency (in current use): 
Origin: Probably formed within English, by clipping or shortening. Etymon: nancy n.
Etymology: Probably shortened < nancy n.
slang (derogatory).
A. n.
Thesaurus »
Categories »

  An effeminate man or boy; a homosexual man. Cf. nan n.1   and nancy n. 2.
1910   Variety 6 Aug. 13   It is not good policy to have the Salvationist [played as] a 'nance'.
1941   B. Schulberg What makes Sammy Run? viii. 158   They were all so different—a titled Englishman and a famous poet and an aesthetic nance and a tough, drunken ex-reporter.
1971   F. Forsyth Day of Jackal xx. 336   We're looking for a fellow who screwed the arse off a Baroness..not a couple of raving nances.
1994   J. Cope Head-on 22   The first time I saw him I thought he was a big nance, with his cool 50s suit with acid burns all over it.
(Hide quotations)


B. adj.
Categories »

  Effeminate; relating to, involving, or characteristic of homosexual men. Cf. nancy adj.
1933   Brevities (N.Y.) 24 Apr. 3/2   The gang will go into hysterics, for it's a typical nance pose.
1936   Down Beat June 6/2   Noble interspersed a lot of comedy hokum with the numbers, including nance bits,..and pretty fair wisecracks.
1949   E. Partridge Dict. Underworld 462/1   Nance walk, a 'girlish' walk in a male.
1974   J. D. MacDonald Dreadful Lemon Sky (1975) xiii. 200   What the hell do they want for a front-runner? Some kind of nance fellow?
1992   G. Vidal Live from Golgotha xiv. 147   Amateur boxing, a nance specialty, as everyone knows.

[kalowski]

I'd be very surprised if this was true, these things never are.

See also "chav": Council housed and violent, whereas it's really a Sanskrit/Romany word for child.

[gib]

Are any of the acronym explanations ever true for this kind of thing?

[Ferris]

Are any of the acronym explanations ever true for this kind of thing?

Essentially never. It seems like this one is mostly incorrect, though Cuellar's post above implies the context is valid (ie child sex offender in a prison) but the backronym itself is an invention.

So that's something.

[JesusAndYourBush]

Another backronym - Odeon cinemas - Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation.

[touchingcloth]

Another backronym - Odeon cinemas - Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation.

You missed the final part of the acronym. Odeon cinemas: Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation; Come Inside Now, Enjoy My Arse.

[Icehaven]

Round this way (this way being HMP Brum) nonce stands for ''Not Of Normal Criminal Enterprise'', which is indeed your kiddly fiddlers and the like. Interesting to hear the Courtyard Exercise version though, never heard that one.

Because nonces in prison get got so they keep them in solitary.

Not in solitary, they have separate wings, and a few entire prisons (like the one on the Isle of Wight.)

[poodlefaker]

The worst I've ever heard was on a boat trip on the Thames; we were passing a wharf and the the tour guide told us it was an old English acronym, standing for "warehouse at river front". I mean, why even bother to make this shit up?

Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden is another one I've been told in all sincerity.

[touchingcloth]

Round this way (this way being HMP Brum) nonce stands for ''Not Of Normal Criminal Enterprise'', which is indeed your kiddly fiddlers and the like. Interesting to hear the Courtyard Exercise version though, never heard that one.

Not in solitary, they have separate wings, and a few entire prisons (like the one on the Isle of Wight.)

Every time I suggest leaving a tip in a restaurant, my dad tells me that the word is an acronym for To Insure Promptness, and should therefore only ever be given before anyone has even started to serve you.