The Thin End of the Wedgie?

[steepholm]

In Jack Whitehouse's BBC3 vehicle Bad Education, his character (an ineffective teacher) is occasionally given wedgies by one of his tougher pupils. In my day, the wedgie was quite unknown, as were noogies, wet willies and many other similar treats. We made do with dead legs and Chinese burns, and when annoyed would give two fingers, not the niggardly singleton in vogue across the Pond. Of course, I know about wedgies and the rest, for they are the staple of US cartoons and high school drama, but until they appeared on British TV the other day I saw them as exotics.

Was I simply out of date? Have wedgies been imported on the same boat that brought us Trick or Treat, proms and grey squirrels? I assumed so, but my daughter tells me that to her, too, they are distinctively American.

So, the quest begins. Has anyone spotted, perpetrated, or been the victim of a real-life wedgie on this side of the Atlantic?

And, if you can answer that, what about the kancho?

Comments

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I occasionally received them in my early and mid teens, so 1979-81 or so.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Do you mind my asking where your school was, and what type?

(Fwiw, mine was a comprehensive in a Hampshire market town.)

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

A comprehensive in a Leicestershire market town.

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

I too mostly remember Chinese burns ('80s in my case). They seemed wildly popular.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Chinese burns definitely go back to the 1950s and 60s because I remember them from primary school.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

Yes, wedgies, late 80s/early 90s, girls' private school, Hertfordshire. More a social embarrassment than anything really disabling, naturally, but sometimes surprising to the sort of people wont to opine that girls don't do physical bullying. Slight sense that the term, though not the practice, was perhaps a foreign import (I think I thought it might have been Antipodean, but this was the halcyon days of Neighbours and Home and Away, so a lot got attributed to Oz).

Funnily enough, this weekend I've spent quite a lot of time researching how to point hose to doublets and/or braies and contemporary illustrations suggest that the wedgie must have been a fairly staple prank of the 14th and 15th centuries. It was just about my first thought on seeing all those blokes with their back points untied and their kecks hanging out, anyway.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

There's nothing new under the moon.

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

Chaucer-- king of wedgies!

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

US, 1960s-70s, never experienced, saw, or heard of a "wedgie" under that or any other name until came across the term long after leaving school; took quite some while before I figured out what the term meant.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

It's an odd name, really. If they'd asked me, I'd have suggested "cheese cutter" - but then, they never do.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

In the slang argot I'm aware of, "to cut the cheese" means "to fart." So if the wedgie resulted in the victim farting, that might be appropriate.