Talk:Gun moll

VfD

from VfD:

Dictdef. --fvw* 04:54, 2004 Dec 22 (UTC)

• Yes, but isn't there potential? The term is pretty specific to a period (roughly 1920s-1940s, I think). I'm guessing that there could be a good article on its etymology, on the cultural stereotype, etc. Keep, someone should write a real article here. -- Jmabel | Talk 09:40, Dec 22, 2004 (UTC)
• Transwiki to Wiktionary, unless someone can do some significant fleshing out. Otherwise keep. Were there any notable gun molls about whom we should write? Was there an important gun moll culture? Was there more to the stereotype than a sentence or two appropriate for a dictdef? --TenOfAllTrades 15:16, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Concur. Edeans 00:17, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• I would also vote to m:transwiki but the same article is [already in Wiktionary [[3]]. This orphaned article looks like a leftover which did not get properly closed out at the end of the transwiki process (the missed step being to delete the original after it's been transwiki'd). Rossami (talk) 21:22, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Delete it. Wyss 22:08, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Request expansion and keep. Samaritan 23:38, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Keep I think it can be expanded. -[[User:Ld|Ld | talk]] 23:53, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Keep, has potential for expansion. Megan1967 23:57, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. Dan100 10:49, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)
• Delete. User:VoltageX or split definition and culture info

end moved discussion

Lead section, esp. "Gun ..." etymology

The idea that the "gun" in gun moll comes from the word meaning "firearm" appears to be incorrect. It seems to be fairly universally accepted that it derives from "gonnif" or "ganef", a Yiddish borrowing itself meaning "thief". --Silverandcold 04:46, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• The ref given supports that, but the wording

Gun is an obsolete English slang word,[1] deriving from "ganef",[2]

while apparently accurate, suggests and almost implies that firearms are called guns because firearms are used by thieves. The wording also leaves it hard to believe that the term did not originate in the US, even tho none of the 4 entries says it did, and 2 insist it arose in the UK. "Yiddish borrowing" is ambiguous between source and recipient. Finally, part of the problem arises from trying to say more than is needed about the intermediate etymology.

My rewording, pretty much complete, in spite of keeping some phrases intact:

A gun moll is a female companion of male professional criminal, and in some contexts the term more specifically suggests that the gun moll handles a firearm.

When the term arose, in the first decade of the 20th century, the "gun" portion came ultimately from the Yiddish word, meaning "thief", that is variously transliterated into English as ganef, gonif, goniff, or ganof, and not from "gun" in the sense of firearm.

The "moll" portion derives from Molly, a diminutive of Mary, used as a euphemism for whore or prostitute.

In the U.S., the term has mostly been applied a woman associating with an American gangster of the 1920s to '30s, and in most cases remarkable only because of his notoriety. Extended use of the term without awareness of the Yiddish root, however, has invited interpretations of "gun" as suggesting more than simply criminal associations. Bonnie Parker and Blanche Barrow were gun molls in this stronger sense, and especially notable examples in general, because of their accompanying the rest of the Barrow Gang to the planned locations of violent crimes, and in Parker's case, apparently directly assisting at least to the extent of loading guns in the midst of shootouts.

--Jerzy•t 07:52, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Isn't the more widely used term "Gangster moll"? I was under the impression that gun moll was a rather obscure term. Shouldn't the main article therefore be headed "gangster moll"?124.197.15.138 (talk) 05:22, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

References

Related terms

The definition of Gunsel on this page is wrong.

Gunsel (noun)

1. A young man kept for homosexual purposes; a catamite.

2. (street and prison slang) A passive partner in anal intercourse.

A lot of people think that Gunsel means something more like a hired gun, or a young gun carrying thug because of Hammet's use of the word in the novel "The Maltese Falcon", but that was just a joke on the censors. Hammet knew what the word meant.

I'm deleting Gunsel from the main page because of this and its lack of anything whatsoever to do with the term "Gun Moll" See the wiktionary link for further information on the term Gunsel. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gunsel

Shelshula (talk) 02:10, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Origins

It currently that that "In the U.S., the term has mostly been applied to a woman associating with an American gangster of the 1920s and 1930s, and in most cases remarkable only because of his notoriety". But isn't the term essentially only a US name anyway? The article implies that the term is international, with a narrower definition in the USA.Royalcourtier (talk) 05:30, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Precise Definition

Part of what intrigues me about this term is the wild ambiguity of it. For example, could Princess Leia be called the "gun moll" of Han Solo? In the movie Mr. & Mrs. Smith, is Jane John's "gun moll"? Would Patricia Hearst, under the name Tania, have been the "gun moll" of men in the SLA? According to some versions of the legend, Guinevere kept Excalibur safe for King Arthur for years, so would that make her his "gun moll"? Was Lady Macbeth the "gun moll" of Macbeth? First of all, it's not obvious to me that the weaponry literally needs to be "guns" if the relationship is the same, because the term is clearly about a relationship (in a way, Guinevere is closer to the relationship than the others mentioned). More importantly, though, at what level of empowerment does the female stop being a "gun moll" and start being a woman warrior in her own right? I chose these examples to be questionable, to call attention to the fact that the term needs a far more precise definition. Isn't the term rife with patriarchal assumptions about the supposed "frailty" or "weakness" of women, who supposed only could assist the "more powerful" man, and never be fierce or threatening in their own right? If such patriarchy is part and parcel of the term, shouldn't this be explicitly addressed in the article? Surely there are some academic feminist writings on the topic! Lapisphil (talk) 05:00, 3 January 2016 (UTC)