Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[Blossom]

Dear sexy teachers,

I have just learned the expression "brand spanking new."

Why brand and why spanking?

[ichini-san]

I've never heard of that phrase :S I know "brand new" but not "mbrand spanking new"

[Lorikeet]

I am going to take a guess. The old idea was when a baby was born, the doctor spanked it to get it started breathing. Doctors do not do that these days, but the idea is still in the words, "brand spanking new." That's what I think, anyway! What do you think?

[advoca]

Brand spanking new is an expression often heard in Britain (I do not know whether it is common in North America.)

It is often suggested that the expression brand spanking new is associated with the arrival of a newly delivered baby, who often has to be slapped gently to start the breathing. However, British midwives do not say they spank babies as this implies punishment. Brits would use the word slap rather than spank here. There may well be a link of some sort, or perhaps a transferred mental image, that has reinforced the existing term in this special case, but I feel sure that it�s not directly the origin of the phrase.

These days, spanking in expressions like this can be said to mean something like extremely, strikingly, or remarkably, but really it�s no more than a flag to give extra force or emphasis to what you�re saying.

The word spanking is not new. It appeared in English about the middle of the seventeenth century, but then implied something that was exceptionally good or especially fine, often something showy or smart. It possibly may have come from a Danish or Norwegian word spanke, to strut (it seems to have no connection with the more usual sense of spank, to slap or hit someone�s bottom as a punishment).

Later on horses often had the word applied to them, to mean one capable of moving very fast, particularly in a smart way.

Later still, spanking could mean no more than moving fast in any kind of conveyance and there need be no link to horses. Frank T Bullen wrote in The Log of a Sea-waif in 1899: �A large canoe ... was coming off to us at a spanking rate�. H G Wells used it in 1904: �The char-a-banc ... was clattering along at a spanking pace� [a char-a-banc, is an early form of bus, used for pleasure trips].

The idea behind the modern sense in the expression spanking new is not so very different from its first use.

But what about �brand?� Formerly the use of brand new was limited to things made of metal. Brand is an old Anglo-Saxon word meaning burn. So a horseshoe, plowshare, or a sword just forged was said to be brand new, in other words, fresh from the fire.

Later the term was applied to all new things.

[clonc]

Advoca is right. Brand spanking new is often heard in Britain. The three words always go together.

The phrase is what is known as a collocation, namely the way that some words occur regularly whenever another word is used. Examples of three-word collocations are, all mod cons, long felt want, dirty old man, close run thing.

[Blossom]

Thank you, dear advoca, for your clear explanation, and thankyou clonc for the extra information.