Other Words for Testicles

Last week I used the word bollox/bollocks/bollix and said it would be the basis of this week’s post. So here it is.

The spelling of the word I was looking for is bollix, not bollox. It is a verb that means to do something badly, or to bungle, and it is often followed by the word “up.” (As in “You really bollixed that up, Bob.” In truth, Bob never bollixes up anything.) The word is a respelling of the word bollocks, which is the plural of bollock, which is an old English word for testicle. The Old English word for testicles is beallucas. Ballocks is another derivation from the word beallucas, which is the plural diminutive of balle, or ball. So testicles have long been called balls.

Bollocks, which can also be defined as a confused bungle, is a noun. It also originally meant testicles (in 1744). By 1919 it appeared in British slang as an ejaculation to mean “nonsense.” The American version of bollocks would be “Nuts.” That ejaculation was famously uttered by Brigadier General Anthony C. McAuliffe during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. “Nuts” was his reply to the German General’s request that he surrender.

Nuts as an interjection expresses disgust, defiance, disapproval, or despair. But as an adjective it means insane or crazy. As a derisive retort it had been attested since 1931, 13 years prior to General McAuliffe’s use. As early as the 1610s the word nut (as in rabid fan) was used for any source of pleasure, and in 1785 the expression “be nutts upon” to describe extreme fondness, and by 1846 the word indicated someone crazed about something, or crazy. At some unknown time it became American slang for testicles. Etymonline.com shares several examples of its taboo quality resulting from this definition: “On the N.B.C. network, it is forbidden to call any character a nut; you have to call him a screwball.” [“New Yorker,” Dec. 23, 1950] “Please eliminate the expression ‘nuts to you’ from Egbert’s speech.” [Request from the Hays Office regarding the script of “The Bank Dick,” 1940].

Numbnuts is a noun for a stupid or ineffectual person. In use in U.S. slang since at least 1971 it is suggestive of impotence, as if the testicles were insensate.

While it does not seem the “bee’s knees” would fit in this category, it does. While it was used as far back as 1797, in 1923 it became a fad (closely associated with the Roaring 20s). It denotes excellence and is indeed based on apian anatomy. (I couldn’t pass up the alliterative opportunity. It would have been simpler to say bee physique.) Originally it meant something insignificant, but its use in the 1920s was indicative of unusual and exotic. The phrase also existed in the form of “bee’s nuts,” but that was too ribald even for the 1920s. Also from the Roaring 20s are the phrases “cat’s whiskers,” “cat’s pajamas,” and “cat’s meow.” Other forms followed, such as “canary’s tusks,” “cat’s nuts,” and “flea’s eyebrows.” The craze may have inspired Cole Porter’s 1934 song “You’re the Top!” In 1989 the phrase form reappeared in Britain as “dog’s bollocks.”

Which brings us full circle, something I feel is the “bee’s knees.”