Recently, I asked users to provide modern-day equivalents of idioms and expressions that contained the words fancy and tickle. The question is titled Whatever tickles their fancy in the US?
I was pretty much convinced that the idiom was quintessentially British, and that few American speakers had heard of it, let alone used it in their everyday conversation. According to Google Books Ngram, I was very much mistaken, since the 1970s the idiom has become increasingly popular in the US (blue line) whilst the opposite is true in the UK.
Now for the fun part. Looking into its origin, I discovered that the idiom tickles your fancy (which basically means “what pleases you”) was originally (?) a double entendre. The term fancy was a euphemism for fanny which in BrEng is a vulgar expression for female genitals but in AmEng is another name for butt or buttocks.
In A Dictionary of Sexual Language and Imagery in Shakespearean and Stuart Literature By Gordon Williams, under the entry of fancy, it says
fancy It means vagina, with a pun on the sense of sexual desire (cf. the current ‘a little of what you fancy does you good’), in Thornley's Longus (1657) p.124, when Daphni's seductress ‘directed him to her Fancie, the place so long desired and sought’.
Under the entry of tickle, page 1389, it tells us
Merry-Thought (1731) I.27 records an ephemeral couplet of 1714: ‘Dear Doll is a Prude, And I tumbled her down; And I tickled her Fancy For half a Crown’. This quibbling phrase turns up in Maids Complaint (1684-6; Pepys Ballads IV.50), the maid enviously hearing “my dame Nancy declare how her Master did tickle her fancy With his dill doul; and in Unconstant Quaker (c.1690; Pepys Ballads V.241), where the Quaker maid was ‘left in the Lurch, after he had Tickl'd her Fancy’.
Unfortunately pages 1387 to 1388 are not available for viewing, so I have no way of knowing if the variant ‘Whatever takes your fancy’ was ever used in 17th or 18th century England.
Questions
- Was “tickle [one's] fancy” originally a double entendre expression?
- Where and when was it first used?
- Did Americans use this idiom as an innuendo? Are there any examples from 18th or mid-19th century American literature (i.e. 1700-1850) that support this? Instances of tickle [your] fancy will also count.
- Is there a term for an expression that used to be a double entendre but is now regarded as being "normal"?
Best Answer
This answer primarily addresses the first question of the four asked above—"Was 'Whatever tickles your fancy' originally a double entendre expression?" It also looks (although not exhaustively) into the second question—"Where and when was it first used?" I have not attemptd to answer the third and fourth questions.
Early Google Books instances of 'tickle [one's] fancy'
I consider it unlikely that the phrase "tickle [one's] fancy" originated as a double entendre. One of the earliest matches for the phrase that a Google Books search finds is from The Princesse Cloria, or, The Royal Romance (1661), spoken by man named Creses:
There is no evident sexual implication here.
Four years later, from Francis Kirkman [Richard Head), The English Rogue: Continued in the Life of Meriton Latroon, and Other Extravagants, the Second Part (1665):
Here the setting is sufficiently heavy with sexual interest, but the context indicates that nothing licentious can yet have occurred—and in any case it is the boy, not the girl, whose fancy is tickled. In an odd way, the fact that this setting invites innuendo makes the lack of any evident double entendre here a stronger than usual point in favor of the argument that the phrase didn't have a widely recognized double meaning in 1665.
Another early instance presents an even less plausible occasion for double entendre. From William Allen, The Danger of Enthusiasm Discovered, in an Epistle to the Quakers (1674):
And from William Howel, An Institution of General History, Or the History of the Ecclesiastical Affairs of the World (1685):
Early EEBO instances of 'tickle [one's] fancy' [New section, April 26, 2020]
Early English Books Online finds some additional early instances of "tickle [one's] fancy" that involve no evident double entendre. For example, from William Gurnall, The Christian in Compleat Armour. Or, A Treatise of the Saints War Against the Devil (1655):
From Richard Baxter, The Vain Religion of the Formal Hypocrite (1660):
From a 1661 translation by Percy Enderbie of Benedictus Pererius, The Astrologer Anatomiz'd, or, The Vanity of Star-Gazing Art Discovered by Benedictus Pererius:
From John Sergeant, A Letter of Thanks from the Author of Sure-Footing to His Answerer Mr. J.T. (1666):
From The Gentlewoman's Companion; or A Guide to the Female Sex Containing Directions of Behaviour, in All Places, Companies, Relations, and Conditions, from Their Childhood Down to Old Age (1673):
And from Theophilus Thorowthistle, "Sober Reflections, or, A Solid Confutation of Mr. Andrew Marvel's Work" (1674):
Early instances of 'tickle the fancy' [Section updated April 26, 2020]
In the full Oxford English Dictionary (1971 edition), the phrase "tickle the fancy" appears under a particular figurative use of the verb tickle:
It seems possible that the earliest instances of "tickle [one's] fancy" cited by Etymonline are actually instances of "tickle the fancy." The OED's first example of the phrase tickle the fancy is from 1774, but EEBO and Google Books searches find instances from as early as 1642. From Daniel Rogers, Matrimoniall Honovr, or, The Mutuall Crowne and Comfort of Godly, Loyall, and Chaste Marriage Wherein the Right Way to Preserve the Honour of Marriage Unstained (1642):
From Edward Reynolds (Bishop or Norwich), Israels Prayer in Time of Trouble, with Gods Gracious Answer Thereunto (1645):
From Richard Baxter, The Saints' Everlasting Rest (1650/1654):
From Nathanael Culverwel, 'The Schisme,' in An Elegant and Learned Discourse of the Light of Nature, with Several Other Treatises Nathanael Culverwel (1652):
From Christopher Love, The Naturall Mans Case Stated, or, An Exact Map of the Little World Man Considered in Both His Capacities, Either in the State of Nature or Grace (1652):
From Thoma Blount, "Instructions for Writing and addressing Letters," in The Academie of Eloquence Containing a Compleat English Rhetorique, Exemplified with Common-places and Formes Digested into an Easie and Methodical Way to Speak and Write Fluently According to the Mode of the Present Times (1654):
From Edward Reynolds, "Joy in the Lord Opened in a Sermon Preached at Pauls, May 6 (1655):
And from John Brinsley, The Spirituall Vertigo, or, Turning Sickensse of Soul-Unsettlednesse in Matters of Religious Concernment the Nature of It Opened, the Causes Assigned, the Danger Discovered, and Remedy Prescribed (1655):
Most of these instances of "tickle the fancy" are from the works of clergymen who show no signs of intending the expression in a double sense.
Early double-entendre use of 'tickle [one's] fancy [New section, April 26, 2020]
The earliest instance that I've been able to find of "tickle [one's] fancy" in an unmistakably sexual sense is from "A Song," in Westminster-Drollery, or, A Choice Collection of the Newest Songs & Poems Both at Court and Theaters by a Pperson of Quality (1671–1672):
This song shows up in multiple collections published from 1671 to 1676.
The next instance I've found is from A. Marsh, The Ten Pleasures of Marriage Relating All the Delights and Contentments That Are Mask'd Under the Bands of Matrimony (1682):
And then from Thomas, D'Urfey, The Intrigues at Versailles (1697), an instance that may be playing on the double meaning:
Conclusions [Updated April 26, 2020]
It seems very possible that the earliest wording of "tickle [one's] fancy" was actually "tickle the fancy," where the verb tickle was understood figuratively to mean something like "amuse" or "divert" and where the noun fancy was understood to refer to "imagination" or "thought" or "mental activity." The fact that so many of the earliest recorded uses of the phrase in EEBO and Google Books search results come from religious figures suggests that "tickle the fancy" was not understood at the outset to allude to anything beyond its obvious figurative meaning.
The earliest instance of "tickle the fancy" that I could find is from 1642, and the phrase seems to have been common by the 1650s. Expressions of the form "tickle one's] fancy" emerge by 1655 but appear to be less common than "tickle the fancy" through most (and perhaps all) of the remainder of the seventeenth century.
Examples of works using "tickle [one's] fancy" as a sexual double entendre go back to at least 1671–1672, when it appears in a popular song. However, such usage evidently did not taint the phrase significantly to dissuade serious-minded authors from continuing to use it. The same might be said of the phrase as used in the present day by a great many people who have no intention of being salacious.