Fanny

The fanny pack is back in style.

In the grey-sky morning of the 31st of March of 2023, Greg and I, both Filipinos, talked at the teahouse on Lulu Island. Greg by then had already finished his coffee, and I had just ordered my Iced Black Tea. Greg bought two bags of Dried Apple Chips, one of which he gave generously to me. We discussed in Tagalog many things like the romanticization of history, Inuit, Cree Indians, Alberta where he lived before, and evolution. Greg still did not believe in evolution, and I mentioned the Filipino creation myth in which from bamboo out came a man and a woman. We both learned this legend in school. I went to the pizzeria to have a slice and a Diet Coke. The owner, the Sri Lankan Tamil named Tharsan, was at the cashier. He lived in Vancouver, not here on Lulu Island. He had a girlfriend, also Sri Lankan. At my table, I read a Japanese fantasy book, Kudaketa Monshou, or Crumbled Coat of Arms. In my red fanny pack, I also had an Esperanto Mini Dictionary.

I bought a fanny pack.

Get off your fanny!

The word "fanny" means something different in American and Canadian English than it does in the English of Britain, Australia, and elsewhere.

Get off your fanny and do something!

If my uncle had a fanny, he'd be my aunt.

"My name is Frances. Don't call me Fanny!" "Why not?" "Because it's too absurd to be endured! What does the mere sound of Fanny suggest? A flirting dancing creature - plump and fair, and playful and pretty!"

They listened to the sound of Fanny’s retreating footsteps. ‘Well, well!’ said Marcus. ‘Oh, take no notice Jess. You know what our Frances Maud is like! It’s nothing to cry about!’ To her humiliation Jessamy found there were tears trickling down her cheeks. ‘Always getting worked up about something, Fanny is.’ – page 105: As she did so Fanny put down her book , stood up and stretched her arms, and at once Jessamy noticed a difference. It was the same Fanny but not the Fanny who climbed trees and tore her frock playing in the garden. It was as though a young lady film had settled over her, neatening her unruly hair, which was tied back with a large black bow, and primly composing her small mouth.

"I spose you want to be a cattleboy," drawled the multicolored beard whose name was Carrol Day, a curiously feminine name, thought Martin, not yet acquaintanced with the bearded Marions, Fannys and Abbys of Texas who, saddled by their unthinking mothers with dainty names, built savagely masculine frames of character.