The phrase “A face like a smacked arse” cropped up in conversation with friends. I assume the meaning’s known around the world – miserable, unhappy – although I guess it could be merely British slang.
Yet for kinky people, it has different connotations. Smacked arse? Pretty, attractive, cute, cheerfully reddened – conjuring up situations that are fun, happy, intense in the best of ways. Erotic, even, with the potential for even more fun imminently in store.
Anyone know where the phrase originated? I can’t find its etymology anywhere online. Perhaps it was a spectacularly successful pervy attempt to corrupt everyday vanilla language. Or, doubtless, it will first have surfaced in something by Shakespeare, Dickens or Wilde. Ideas welcome!
“I assume the meaning is known around the world”. Yes, because the entire world speaks English ;-). Thanks for the language lesson, Mr Jenkins!
A rather nice Black Country saying I’ve come across (since being married to someone from the Black Country) is ‘she’s got her arse in her hands’ which also means that someone is miserable/grumpy. I guess the idea behind that might be that if you’d just been spanked, you might be holding/rubbing your bottom and feeling unhappy… x
Interesting post. I live in the USA and although we speak a different English, I have never heard this expression or anything vaguely similar.