"Spanking", the word

I'm sure there are many of us who still get a little frisson every time we read the word "spanking" or hear it spoken. But does anyone know when it first acquired its modern usage? As far as I can tell, it was originally a nautical term, and had connotations of speed, rather than of blows or punishment. A spanker was a sail to make a boat go faster, or people might speak of a horse "going at a spanking pace". Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable defines spanking as "large, rapid, strong" with no mention of punishment. However, the definition of "spank" in that book possibly gives a clue as to how the transition was made between speed and the modern meaning of spanking ...

Spank: a slap to urge one to greater energy.

I came across a particularly interesting usage in the 1941 book about corporal punishment "The Whip and the Rod". On page 219 it quotes an 18th century pamphelt about so-called "whipping Toms", ie men who illicitly spanked people on the streets of London.

"Whipping Tom for some weeks past has lurked about ... and at unawares seizes on such as he can conveniently light on, turns them up as nimble as an eel, and not having the advantage of a rod uses his hands, makes their butt end cry spanko, and then vanishes. ... She had not passed far, when he, with great speed and violence, seized her, and in a trice, laying her across his knee, took up her linen, and lay'd so hard upon her posterior that she cry'd out piteously for help."

I'm pretty sure "butt end" meant the same as it does today, but how should we interpret "cry spanko"? This cannot possibly be the modern usage of "spanko". Any suggestions?

Apparently, spanking truly is the "English Vice"...

And why do we use the expression 'brand spanking new'?

I believe that comes from the old practice of spanking newborn babies to stimulate them into taking their first breaths. {Do they still do that? Did they ever really do that?}

They did really used to do it. And from my own personal experience they do not.

According to worldwidewords.org:

These days, spanking in expressions like that 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 appears 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 may have come from a Danish or Norwegian word spanke, to strut (it seems not to be connected with the more usual sense of spank, to slap, which may be imitative). Later on horses often had the word applied to them, to mean one capable of moving very fast, but particularly in a smart way.

Later still, it could mean no more than moving fast in any kind of conveyance, with 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" [char-a-banc, an early form of bus, used for pleasure trips].

The idea behind the modern sense in brand spanking new is not so very different from its first use. The phrase itself is first recorded from the middle of the nineteenth century.

Many people associate the phrase in particular with the arrival of a new-born baby, who often has to be slapped gently to start him or her breathing. However, British speakers would use slap rather than spank here, as the latter implies punishment. There may well be a link of some sort here, or perhaps a transferred mental image, that has reinforced the existing term in this special case, but it's not directly the origin of the phrase.

I checked this in a Danish and a Norwegian online dictionary. The Danish only listed the word in "our" meaning, and then as derived from English in the 1970's. The Norwegian listed the word in Rick's sense (strutting, walking in an arrogant and powerful way), but it is so obsolete that even a lifelong spanko like me didn't know about it. There is a similar word "spankulere" which is also rare, but still in use (even by me). It is also related to walking, but now in a more philosophical and absentminded way, although there is still a hint of showing off.

To Alan Barr, and others, Thank you for the HISTORY of SPANKING, Let all us 'SPANKO'S rejoice in having a 'spanking good time' over this truly English Vice.

I wonder where the nautical term "spanker" came from, for a sail I think. Very likely from the association with speed.

There was a young lady named Banker, (also known as "of Bangor")
Who slept while the ship lay at anchor,
She woke in dismay,
When she heard the mate say,
"Now hoist up the topsheet and spanker."

The spanker is the aftmost (how appropriate!) (gaff) sail on sailing ship as marked on the picture on this page

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/spanker