From cauldrons to cardigans - the lurking prejudices behind the name ‘Granny’

From its debut in the early 1600s, “granny” has been more than an affectionate term for grandma — and a cursory glance at its history tells a depressingly familiar story.

First, the instability and decline of words associated with women. “Granny” joins a long list of words, particularly for older women, that have acquired negative meanings — spinsters were originally spinners; sluts were untidy people; slags and shrews were rogues; scolds were poets; bimbos were men, and so on. Many started life referring to men, but quickly narrowed to female application — and with this sexual specification came further decline.

Right from the start, grannies were also people engaged in trivial (often self-serving) chatter; in other words, grannies were gossips, tell-tales and nosy parkers. In the 1700s, more negative meanings piled on — grannies became fussy, indecisive or unenterprising persons, and in many places stupid as well.