Preface To Knocking: There Are No Jokes About Knockers In This Blog Entry

I don't think I'll play any songs about "knockers" (if there are any) this week on the KNOCK show. I confess I haven't heard the term since I was a kid. Funnily enough, watching The Fall & Rise Of Reginald Perrin, a British sit-com from the 70s, last night, I did hear breasts referred to as "knockers." Crazy how these things happen.

The term "knockers" referring to breasts (some people say "women's breasts," but for the purposes of this discussion that seems redundant) is supposed to be fairly old though it became popular with army folk in the 40s. It was a "safe" euphemism for breasts for a while, coming into its own probably around the time of Laugh-In & dying out (more or less) by the beginning of the 80's. But no one really knows where it comes from.

One person on the www.phrases.org.uk message board added this: "A little site called LondonSlang.com asserts that the term orignates in London. It doesn't give any other explanation but it is listed along with the term 'knocking shop' for brothel. I'm not sure whether knocking shop is used here in the US, but it seems like it might be a clue to the phrase's origin." But I'm not at all convinced about that, though English speakers have used the word "knock" to mean "have sex," leading to a pregnant woman being "knocked up."

A "knocker" is properly one of two things: one who knocks, &/or a device on a door used to knock on it. Therefore one might imagine that calling a pair of breasts "knockers" would be related to this. On the same discussion list mentioned above, one shrewd poster pointed out that most doors only have a single knocker, so why would a pair of breasts be like a knocker? Someone suggested the motion of the knocker, but then the knocker isn't so much about its motion as it is about its sound, & most breasts I've had the experience to know are rather quiet. On the plus side, one correspondent pointed out that door knockers tend to be breast level - though I seem to remember them being more chin level - & I'm a fairly tall fellow.

I just don't know, & since the term is considered slang at best & vulgar at worst, most respectable etymologists won't bother with it. & the great Urban Dictionary doesn't care about word origins.

See? Not a single joke about knockers. Just information. That's the Self Help Radio way!