Linda is up the swanny

J

Jimbuzig

Member
Spanish
Hi, in Peaky Blinders, Arthur Shelby says:
“Linda is up the swanny. I’m gonna be a fucking dad.”
I guess to be up the swanny is to be pregnant but no dictionary gives me a clue. Is this a well known expression in English or just an idiolect?
 
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    • I don't think it's just an idiolect, but I don't think it's common either. It sounds twee/dated/regional to me. It's short for "the swanny river". You're right about the meaning in this context.
     
    I have looked online for a derivation, but I cannot find one for the context. I have heard 'up the swanny' meaning 'in trouble', which is itself a term for being pregnant, but I can find nothing to suggest it was used specifically for pregnancy.

    The term I am more familiar with is 'up the duff', which OED says is Australian in origin and gives no examples before 1941, which is a little late (and half a world away) from Peaky Blinders.
     
    Try 'Swanee' (from Suwannee river) . Reasonably common usage in BE, but, as Uncle Jack says, = 'in trouble' more generally - the context usually indicates whether it's being used as a euphemism for 'being pregnant'.
     
    lentulax said:
    Try 'Swanee' (from Suwannee river) . Reasonably common usage in BE, but, as Uncle Jack says, = 'in trouble' more generally - the context usually indicates whether it's being used as a euphemism for 'being pregnant'.
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    Common? I'd never heard it before (I'm a Londoner) , although the meaning was clear in the context. I think it must be a regionalism. Isn't 'Peaky Blinders' set in the Midlands?
     
    In the US, "Swanee River" is a famous folk song (first published in 1851). It was still popular when I was a kid. I've never heard "up the Swanee" but "up the river" is a common AE phrase meaning "in trouble". The full phrase is "up the river without a paddle".
     
    As for the origin of the word swanny I’ve found this : “Probably alteration of dialectal (I) s' wan ye (I) shall warrant ye”

    But we are dealing here with a noun not a verb. Surely the screenwriter must know what he meant, but the character in the scene is very happy so unless he’s using irony he hasn’t got a problem. Or his wife.
     
    dojibear said:
    In the US, "Swanee River" is a famous folk song (first published in 1851). It was still popular when I was a kid. I've never heard "up the Swanee" but "up the river" is a common AE phrase meaning "in trouble". The full phrase is "up the river without a paddle".
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    The song is well known in the UK too. As for the phrase we say 'up the creek without a paddle/up :warning:shit creek'.
     
    I'm from the South West and I know "it's up the swanny" used in the way PaulQ describes in post #7.

    It didn't seem odd to me in context, although the fact that the father used it and was also very happy seems the strange part. Peaky Blinders is about hardmen in gangs, and so perhaps it's just a typical part of their bravado when dealing with emotional subjects.
     
    Jimbuzig said:
    As for the origin of the word swanny I’ve found this : “Probably alteration of dialectal (I) s' wan ye (I) shall warrant ye”
    Click to expand...

    Seems very unlikely to me. I've always known the phrase as 'Up the Swanee' ; in fact, the first time I've read it as 'Up the swanny' was in this thread. (I was brought up in the North of England, as well as living there now.)
     
    Up the swanny / up the Swanee is indeed a British-English term meaning "in serious trouble", in a probably permanent way, e.g. pregnancy, the "big end" failing on one's car, the British economy in 2008, being sent on a suicidal military mission by one's uncomprehending superior officer, etc. But the term can be used in a black-humour rueful-happy way too, as here in the Peaky Blinders episode.

    I wouldn't call this a dated term at all: it's one of a range of phrases in circulation such as "up the duff", "up s*** creek" and so on.

    If "Up the duff" is Australian, there are myriad ways it could have migrated over to the UK: via the military in World War One and World War Two, and the hundreds of thousands of Aussies who have visited to work and travel over the last 60 years or so.

    "Up the swanny" appears to be derived from a US minstrel song that was very popular in the UK in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century; my grandfather and great-aunt were keen singers and piano players, and both had the sheet music. Interestingly the phrase "down the Swanee" (a line from the song) was used in the same way as late as 1944, so when "down" became "up", I've no idea. Source: meaning and origin of the phrase ‘down the Swanee’
     
    There are a series of expressions using up or down a river:

    P5. down the river.Always with negative connotations
    a. U.S. to go [or to be sold] down the river.

    (a) (Of a slave) (to be sold and) conveyed to a plantation on the lower Mississippi (see Phrases 5b(a)).
    c. colloquial (chiefly U.S.). to send down the river: to send to prison. Cf. up the river at Phrases 6.
    1894 Atlantic Rep. 27 391/2 The witness..has testified here that he heard the chief say that he had got H. H. Hollister, and was going to send him down the river, whether guilty or not.
    d. colloquial (chiefly U.S.). to be down the river: to be finished, ruined, or past repair; to be in the past, to be over and done with.
    P6. colloquial (originally U.S.). up the river: to prison; (originally) spec. to Sing Sing prison, situated up the Hudson River from the city of New York. Now also: in prison. Frequently in to send a person up the river.

    Surprisingly, if the OED is to be believed, "Down/up the Swanee" is British and recent. Thus the line in the script is an anachronism.

    2. to go down the Swanee = to go down the drain; to become ruined or bankrupt. Cf. river n.1 Phrases 5d. slang.
    1977 Observer 21 Aug. 1/3 A senior Leyland convener..called on the Government to give Leyland ‘latitude’ in settling its pay problems. Without that, he said, the company ‘would go down the Swanee’.
     
    matchmade said:
    Source: meaning and origin of the phrase ‘down the Swanee’
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    I'm well acquainted with with the song and assumed the phrase was linked to it but, as I said above, I've never heard the expression in my life. I'm still fairly convinced it's regional.

    That said, creeks and rivers are often used in this kind of context.

    Ah! Just read Paul's post. So it's recent, is it? That's probably why I was unaware of it.
     
    "To be up the swanny" for a girl means when the woman can't feel her monthlies and guesses she's pregnant. Here the monthlies are compared to the Swanee river and to be up this means to be free from the monthlies meanwhile to be down the swanee river would mean to be deeply in monthlies' time ... For instance, in France, when a boy can't have sex with her girlfriend because of her monthlies, we used to say the river is red... which means the monthlies flowing is compare to a river flow
     
    Andygc said:
    It is not part of British English culture to relate menstruation to rivers. Your explanation might work in French, but not in English.
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    Sincerely... i could not bring myself into a which culture relates menstruation to river debate... but without disrespecting your assessment in what is English made, let me recall you this sentence " to be up the Swanny" said during a Peaky Blinders' ep comes from the gypsy culture which are well known not to be english natives.
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    PaulQ said:
    This is important to mention.
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    Indeed. It's also probably worth commenting that the things people say in Peaky Blinders are the words written by a scriptwriter in the 21st century, not words spoken by an Irish/Romany criminal in the 1920s. Given the lack of any good evidence that up the Swanny/Swanee/Swannee existed in that period as meaning "in trouble" or "pregnant" (OED, Green's Dictionary of Slang, various websites discussing etymology), it appears to be a scriptwriter's creation. (Whereas there is some evidence for "down the Swannee" meaning "in trouble".)

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    I believe he said " Linda is up the swally" :swally (plural swallies) (Scotland, informal) A drink or gulp. quotations ▼
     
    ghill31015 said:
    I believe he said " Linda is up the swally" :swally (plural swallies) (Scotland, informal) A drink or gulp. quotations ▼
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    Have you an explanation as to why a person in 1920's Birmingham would be using a Scottish dialect word?
     
    I was born 12 miles from Birmingham in 1946. I can attest that "up the swanny" (other spellings are available) was not uncommon in my childhood. Google Books Ngram Viewer tells me that the phrase was used sporadically in print from 1890 to 1960 and more frequently since then. The meaning is "in deep trouble". And "in trouble" was a euphemism for pregnant. So all in all I find it plausible that a Black Country character in the 1920s might have used the phrase.

    And I am one that is very critical of modern screenwriters who have 1940s characters talk about medication (= medicine) and train station (= railway station).
     
    The Ngrams for the 19th and early 20th centuries are all literal uses or references to the title of the famous song. The OED seems to be inaccurate on this one.

    From meaning and origin of the phrase ‘down the Swanee’
    The earliest occurrence of the phrase down the Swanee that I have found is from The Barrel, a short story by J. T. Jackson, published in the Birmingham Gazette (Birmingham, Warwickshire, England) of Tuesday 20th July 1926—R.M.L.I. is the abbreviation of Royal Marine Light Infantry:

    “Now then, you scroungers,” shouted the bo’sun’s mate. “No wonder your gang’s down the Swanee. Get a move on. Lounging here when you know very well we’re trying to beat that big blighter over there!”
    “It’s all very well ter race other ships when yer coalin’,” grumbled Corporal Lightfoot about half an hour later. “Wot say we ’ave a try fer that beer?”
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    Though when "up the Swanee" was used to mean 'pregnant' is anyone's guess.
     
    PaulQ said:
    The Ngrams for the 19th and early 20th centuries are all literal uses or references to the title of the famous song.
    Click to expand...
    How can you possibly know that? The ngram database contains no contextual information whatsoever.

    I pointed this out in a completely unrelated thread earlier this year: Is "fix" [=repair] AmE?
     
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