It began as my dad drove me home. He played a tape given to him by a friend, a scratchy recording of a woman crooning, "Oh, Mister Mitchell, I'm crazy 'bout your sweet poontang."

Though supposedly referring to a dessert Mister Mitchell has baked, Dad and I knew there was a double entendre at play. But one that confused us. We'd known "poontang" to be a slang vulgarism for "vagina." But here was a woman singing about a man's poontang. What could that mean? Which lead me to wonder, What's the etymology of "poontang"? For some reason I had suspected African origin, as with the word "goober."

That night, I started trawling the Web. Unfortunately, a search for "poontang" turns up less-than-academic resources. Publishing the etymological question on my site, I received some great responses. This list of definitions and etymologies is the most helpful.

But. None of them were definitive. The leading contender (and OED-certified), that the word is "probably" derived from the French putain, meaning "prostitute", doesn't ring true--"poontang" always refers to a vagina (even when used synecdochically), and, as the song lyrics to the left show, in the late 1920s it was used as a double entendre for a kind of dessert--nothing to do with whores.

Which leads us down another path. Is there a dessert called "poontang"? My dad is tracking down a lead with a chef in a Southern restaurant, about a dessert called "pudding tang." The idea being it could have been contracted as "pu'n tang."

A search on the Web for "pudding tang" doesn't turn up a dessert, but it does point us to this page on the etymology of sexual slang, which features the children's rhyme, "What's my name?/Pudding Tang/Ask me again and I'll tell you the same." (Other versions use the name Puddin' Tang or Puddin' Tane.) This short story contains the phrase "get some puddin tang," in a way analagous to "get some pussy."

So, there's a fair amount to suggest poontang is related to this thing called "pudding tang," though it's not certain which came first. And, if "pudding tang" were some kind of traditional Southern dessert, I find it odd you can't find any recipes for it online.

So, where does that leave us? Well, in an unfortunate state of inconclusivity. I'm pretty confident it's not derived from the French putain, but the jury is still out on any American South derivation.

The Genderless Tangent
As stated previously, the song uses "poontang" to talk about something a man has. Other than "gonads," I couldn't think of any other gender neutral term for sex organs. Though an interesting potential "pudding tang" relationship came up. In an email discussion with Laura Kehoe, she reminded me of "pud," which is slang for penis, and "pudendum" which is a gender neutral term for genital organs, and whose Latin meaning was "to be ashamed."