Wanker
Just bored sorry bye
shareOK, wanker.
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MovieChat Forums > Wonka (2023) Discussion > Wanker
Call me wanker: -
https://youtu.be/8k-P9QVutBk?t=108
LOL! Funniest British insult.
shareThere was a character called Arnold Wanker in Mork & Mindy. Apparently, the writers liked to sneak naughty things like this past the oblivious execs. This was hilarious -- far funnier than anything else on the show -- to British school children. It may or may not still make me chuckle...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KtXNz9QVMk
Wanker doesn't have the emotional impact for Americans even though we know it's an insult.
shareOh, I'm not sure back in the 1970s/80s most of the American audience would have even known it was an insult. And neither did the producers of Mork & Mindy or the network executives. But the writers did.
I like to think in the script for the next episode there was a 'Mr Twat' and the producers went 'Oh, hold on a minute here...'
Twat and twit are said by Americans although not commonly used. I haven't used twit since I was a kid. I've heard "dumb twit".
1970s British comedies were popular in the U.S. and wanker was a common term. That's where I first heard it. The comedy context is probably why I associate the word as silly. I'm assuming it's vulgar in Britain.
I guarantee you wouldn't have heard "wanker" in 70s British comedies. You would not have heard it until the late eighties and in unmistakably edgier shows. It's the same as "jerkoff".
shareAnd movies. Video edited poorly so he only says wank.
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/70ed4134-9c90-4d0a-bfd4-027b367250dc
Monty Python's Life of Brian, Holy Grail and TV series were extremely popular in the 70s along with Benny Hill and many other series and movies.
I hear wanker in dramas, too. I can't take it seriously in dramas as a vulgar word. They might as well just say "silly goose".
Little kids said jerkoff when I was young. It could be vulgar too, but we used it to mean goofing off.
Now, I want to watch Life of Brian, again.
Never once heard wanker in Benny Hill. The life of Brian is a highly controversial and edgy film from the late Seventies. It's not typical of language in 70s British comedies popular in the US.
shareAlways found the word wanker to be a strange insult to men.
It means you are saying that the person masturbates. Well...same applies to most men, and women come to that.
I think it goes back to a more puritanical time in the UK, when sex was still considered perverse by some. It was something they didn't talk about, and pretended they never did it.
Hence to call someone a wanker was to call them a pervert.
And you don't hear it so much now in the UK. Sadly, it seems to have been replaced by Paedo.
It was definitely intended to be misheard. Makes you wonder why someone would use a double entendre for a kid's book.
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