exitcreative

I was cruising around the ‘pedia for a while today looking at New York entries. I made my way from entries on the Queensbridge Houses to an article about Bedford-Stuyvesant to Streetball, Rucker Park, Earl “The Pearl” Monroe, Walt Frazier, Blaxploitation and finally: Pimp.

There’s some entertaining stuff on Wikipedia but “Pimp” has got to be one of the best entries.

Some nuggets:

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the origins of the word “pimp” are unknown, but it is thought to be related to the sixteenth century French verb pimper, which means “alluring or seducing in outward appearance or dress”. Nowadays, the French adjective “pimpant” is used when talking about something which draws attention due to its flashy or clean look.

In 1949, the United Nations adopted a convention stating that prostitution is incompatible with human dignity, requiring all signing parties to punish pimps and brothel owners and operators, and to abolish all special treatment or registration of prostitutes. The convention was ratified by 89 countries, non-signatories included Germany, the Netherlands, Australia and the United States.

Amazing. An anti-pimpin’ UN convention. That’s awesome. Also awesome that we wouldn’t sign any regulations against pimpin’.

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet some contend that the word fishmonger (someone who sells “fish”, a modern euphemism for vagina perhaps in use at the time) was in turn a euphemism for a pimp.

Who knew?