What does this mean?

[saxikath]

An article on boston.com about the death of Anna Nicole Smith called her a "pneumatic blonde." What on earth does that mean?

Comments

[persona.livejournal.com]

UPDATE: While I don’t take any of this back, or agree with the usage, according to the Urban Dictionary, “in the novel “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley, the word ‘pneumatic’ was used to describe the sensation of sex with the main female character Lenina. In this context it means well rounded, or bouncy, in reference to her breasts and her body.”

[lemurtanis.livejournal.com]

I don't know what you wrote before, but the BNW sense is the one I've always understood that usage to imply. Also connotes looseness or vapidity.

"Is your wife a goer, eh?"

[syonakeleste.livejournal.com]

Airheaded, methinks.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I've always understood pneumatic to mean that she was busty, in an unnatural seeming way, as if she'd had her breasts inflated with an air hose.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

It means she had large breasts. The phrase appeared in Brave New World; I'm not sure how standard it is elsewhere.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Checking our copy of the Oxford English Dictionary, gnomi and I found the following reference under the definition of "pneumatic":

A. 1. e. humorous (transf. use of b). Of a woman: having a well-rounded figure, esp. a large bosom; of or pertaining to a woman having such attributes.

1919 T. S. ELIOT Whispers of Immortality in Poems, Grishkin is nice...Uncorseted, her friendly bust Gives promise of pneumatic bliss.

1926 F. M. FORD A Man could stand Up I.i.17 She didn't obviously offer -- what was it the fellow called it? -- promise of pneumatic bliss to the gentlemen.

1932 A. HUXLEY Brave New World vi.108 'Every one says I'm awfully pneumatic.' said Lenina reflectively, patting her own legs...'You don't think I'm too plump, do you?'

There are more references to this usage from the years 1951, 1961 (2), 1974, and 1976.

[desireearmfeldt]

The thing that's really confusing in Brave New World (which is the first place I heard the word "pneumatic" at all, having missed e.g. drills before then) was that it refers to both women and chairs. :)

[davehogg.livejournal.com]

I suspect they were using it in the sense of artificially-inflated breasts, as opposed to naturally large ones.

[sylvanstargazer.livejournal.com]

As others have stated, Huxley took the word for air-powered and applied it to round, "inflated" women. It has also been used in other context to describe sexy-heavy women, because apparently women and machinery are both sexy when filled with air? For example, the word has often been used to describe Crumb's arguably mysogenistic women:

[tenwii.livejournal.com]

It means filled with air. Birds have pneumatized bones...filled with air pockets.

I actually feel very badly about Anna Nicole Smith. That poor woman. I kind of can't believe it--she's such a constant presence in the media. When I heard it on the radio last night (I couldn't sleep) I was pretty shocked. Hopefully she's in a better place with her beloved son now.

I know some folks might find it funny that I care, but something about her always seemed so very sad and lonely. That she died like this...well, it's even more sad.

-J