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An American comedian, following a long set here in Australia, told the audience to stand up and stretch. He then tried to direct us to "bend over and pat your neighbour on the fanny". Stone cold silence did not indicate to him his mistake, and he tried several times before eventually realising he had lost his audience goodwill entirely with this starting skit.
Turned out later that he had no clue what "fanny" means here, and had to have it explained to him.
Genuinely curious what does fanny mean in Australia
It's slang for 'pussy'. It's the same in the UK.
So question for any language experts: why is it different?
I'm not an expert, but "cunt" is related to similar Germanic words meaning "arse". Etymonline just says the American "fanny" came from the British: https://www.etymonline.com/word/fanny#etymonline_v_1119
Because Australia is upside down.
And England, where we got it from?
Who knows why those limey bastards do anything.
Americans are obsessed with being different from England. See: Football / Soccer
There's a Christmas song that became a classic in the US largely because it was hated in England.
The English were the ones that created the term soccer. It grew in popularity in America as soccer, then eventually fell out of popularity in Britain. In fact, a lot of the differences between words in the US and Britain are that Brits started using a different version of the word and Americans kept using the old one. Not all, but a lot.
Source: https://time.com/5335799/soccer-word-origin-england/
So one American circa 1776 decided "know what, mate? I think 'fanny' should refer to ass, not pussy"
Why?
"Coz fuck da bri'ish!!"
🍻 🍻 👏🥂
Sounds like the most American thing I've ever heard.
Same guy also had a hatred for useless letter "u"s.
Nah, that's just Americans being illiterate and obstinate about being corrected.
Naw we're just efficient 😁
Do Americans spell 'island' with an 's'? Then it has nothing to do with efficiency.
Shit. Got me.
...which one?