Chrysti The Wordsmith: Hanky Panky

Greetings This is Christie the wordsmith from Montana State University in Bozeman. To engage in hanky panky is to be involved in infidelity or sexual misbehavior. This term is a relative newcomer to the English language having appeared in print an eight hundred forty one. So what's the story behind this saucy little rhyming expression hanky panky. Some etymological sources suggest it comes from Romany. One of the languages spoken by European Gypsies. The Romany phrase is spelled in dictionaries. H a k k n i p a n k I. Hockney punky is said to mean sleight of hand trickery or to use an old fashioned term legerdemain the Oxford English Dictionary considers hanky panky to be a variation on the much older expression hokus pokus a term originally used by magicians performing tricks. Robert Hendrickson in his encyclopaedia of word and phrase origins says this phrase quote may have been coined from the magician's handkerchief or hanky

under which so many things have appeared and disappeared through clever sleight of hand. The expression also appears in Carnival jargon as hanky panky meaning a tawdry trinket or a midway game so designed that every player would win a cheap souvenir by the 1040s hanky panky had lost its denotation of trickery or deceit and acquired sexual overtones referring to covert extramarital dalliances. I'm Christie the wordsmith good data bores Christy the wordsmith a sponsored by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Zoot enterprises a high tech firm in Bozeman Montana offering challenging careers and innovative solutions for the financial services industry. Pseud web dot com.