In a post about a topic I'm not informed enough to have an opinion on (yes, there are a few of them), Mark Kleiman wonders if there's a form of the term "bimbo" that applies to men.
The term I've heard used is "himbo."
Glad to be of service.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Assisting Mark Kleiman
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2 comments:
As you and Kleiman probably already know, bimbo is masculine in Italian its original language.
Bimbo is a masculine singular word in Italian. The feminine is bimba. Bimbo means baby boy.
So uh how did uh ? Well there was some serious confusion bimbo was used as a slang term for young male prostitutes and evidently some English speaking turists who noted that they lacked beards didn't guess their sex (yeah right sure).
Hm. Thanks for the insight.
"Himbo," (as in "He says this time it's true love, but it looks to me like he just found another himbo who'll put up with him") of course, is obviously a back-formation, and probably shouldn't be taken too seriously an actual word in the first place.
And I agree, a definite "yeahright" on how it got into English with the meaning it has.
True story: My neighbor was involved in a lawsuit against her previous employer, alleging sex discrimination. The employer called my neighbor's attorney and threw a tirade, ending with "I don't care what that bimbo says, I'M NOT SEXIST!!!"
I don't think he helped his case with that assertion....
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