That Cheesey Cheshire Cat Grin...
....is readily induced just by yelling the word “pussy!” out loud in the vicinity of a heterosexual man. I have no idea if this is a universal truth because I have yet to go around screaming “pussy” at random men I suspect of being straight. There’s still time, I suppose, to see if indeed it makes men chortle or whether they’ll simply respond uffishly. Alternatively, one could use it to test how manxome they might be.
Nonetheless, I was most bemused to discover that there is a ranking of the nation’s most favourite substitute for the word "vagina".
It is perhaps no coincidence that Lloyd’s Pharmacy published their findings on the International Women’s Day of March 8th, 2022.
Pussy landed at no.6. Further abreast, the ostensibly snicker-snacking “private parts” was preferred by our Scottish cousins; a very pragmatic “Lady Bits” favoured by the Welsh, and “Nunny” was nominated by our Northern Irish neighbours.
I was even more astonished to learn that one can pretty much pinpoint where in England one hails from by their preferred euphemism. If one opts for a “foo-foo”, then one likely originates from the East, although the more conservative Yorkshireperson keeps it short and simple with “vag”. In the North East it’s a “foof”, whereas if one is from the West Midlands, it’s all just “down there”. Whereas in the actual regions of down there, Londoners jazz it up as a “vajayjay”, although those coming from the South East prefer a bit of “minge” but it’s an absolute “noo noo” if one is rooted in the South West.
Over in Cheshire, residents opt for England’s no.1 genteelism: Fanny. The UK's fanny, much to the oblivion of our American counterparts, is not to be confused with what they might call a “Tush”.
Loosely translated to mean “the home of the waving bottacks”, Tushingham’s proper name is the much more grandiloquent: Tushingham-cum-Grindley. For the unfamiliar: it is a small village located in the southern region of Cheshire, a county whose welcoming slogan just so happens to be “home of England’s finest gardens”.
This most decorous of counties’ most famous resident was, of course, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson: the inventor of the portmanteau. For the unfamiliar, a portmanteau is a combination of two words melded together to produce a nice shiny new word, such as: intertwingle, manscaping and vajazzle.
He was, of course, better known as Lewis Carroll, the most ardent fan of inventing new words.
Disappointingly, given there is no adjacent survey conducted by Lloyds Pharmacy, I cannot tell you where on a survey of penis alternatives this word ranks:
Welcome to Cheshire: The home of England’s finest euphemisms.