Groucho's Fact Hunt

[COYBL25]

Baker was a butcher...

He was a solicitors clerk st the time, who had ambitions to become butcher, his family also had a long history of mental illness, so probably was mentally ill at the time x

 

[The Cowboy]

The saying - Sweet Fanny Adams ;

In 1867, eight year old Fanny Adams was abducted and dismembered by twenty nine year old Frederick Baker in a village in rural Hampshire. Due to her age and the fact that Baker, butchered her then scattered her body parts far and wide after murdering her, the case became a national obsession at the time.

In 1869 the British Navy introduced the first cans of tinned food to sailors in the form of Mutton. The tinned mutton apparently looked and tasted disgusting, giving rise to naval slang that the mutton looked like - " sweet Fanny Adams".
( meaning a disgusting stinking mess ! )

This saying quickly spread to the general public and became common slang, eventually becoming the saying - " Sweet F*** All "

Where you getting this from? Doesn't really make sense. Something being a stinking mess and something being sweet F*** All are two rather different things.

 

[Seathestars]

Oxford university is older than the Aztec empire

 

[Philw]

Isn't there some formula that describes the limit to how many times you can fold a piece of paper?

I've heard the answer to this given as 7. Dunno how true that is tho.

 

[deipnosophist]

Where you getting this from? Doesn't really make sense. Something being a stinking mess and something being sweet F*** All are two rather different things.

I must confess to also being somewhat at the post. Sweet Fanny Adams means the same as sweet FA...but I'm at a loss to link the stinking mess reference.

 

[Jamo Martinez]

There's an older one from 1839

An older person at time of Photo?

 

[The Cowboy]

I've heard the answer to this given as 7. Dunno how true that is tho.

I think it's impossible to do it more than 7 by hand. But I'm sure if you got a super thin piece of crepe paper you could probably do more than 7 with a mechanical press.

 

[COYBL25]

Where you getting this from? Doesn't really make sense. Something being a stinking mess and something being sweet F*** All are two rather different things.

It's a play on words.

She was a " sweet " young girl, ( sweet Fanny Adams ), but was butchered, leaving her body in a mess.

The tins of mutton the sailors were given to eat, looked disgusting - a bloody mess.

Therefore the saying came about via the sailors originally " that looks like sweet Fanny Adams "

Ie - a mess. The saying eventually evolved into the slang term we use today - Sweet FA.

Got it now ?

 

[The Cowboy]

It's a play on words.

She was a " sweet " young girl, ( sweet Fanny Adams ), but was butchered, leaving her body in a mess.

The tins of mutton the sailors were given to eat, looked disgusting - a bloody mess.

Therefore the saying came about via the sailors originally " that looks like sweet Fanny Adams "

Ie - a mess. The saying eventually evolved into the slang term we use today - Sweet FA.

Got it now ?

No, because Sweet FA doesn't mean 'a mess'. So the two simply cannot be related.

 

[COYBL25]

No, because Sweet FA doesn't mean 'a mess'. So the two simply cannot be related.

I give up, just have a look at the wiki site for it, hopefully you'll get it then.

In a nut shell over the passage of time, Sweet F*** All became a slang for meaning " nothing at all ".

Pfftt

 

[Donald Twain]

I give up, just have a look at the wiki site for it, hopefully you'll get it then.

In a nut shell over the passage of time, Sweet F*** All became a slang for meaning " nothing at all ".

Pfftt

He's playing you like a didgeridoo here !

 

[The Cowboy]

He's playing you like a didgeridoo here !

Not at all. I'm not having a go at him, just stating that the etymology of the phrase makes no sense whatsoever.

 

[Donald Twain]

@The Cowboy in a terrible mood here!

 

[Donald Twain]

Not at all. I'm not having a go at him, just stating that the etymology of the phrase makes no sense whatsoever.

Leave me alone , I just come on here for a laugh!

 

[malfosse]

No, because Sweet FA doesn't mean 'a mess'. So the two simply cannot be related.

The phrase "sweet fanny Adams" which the sailors used to refer to the mutton, was later changed to "sweet nothing" . The "sweet nothing" was the missing part. Sweet nothing= sweet FA.