In the British Armed Services bennies are benzedrine tablets. During the war, bomber pilots/ crew members took them to help them deal with the exhaustion/stress of the long runs to their 'drop' sites. British commando units also took them-in fact, I think, were issued them!
Pilots certainly used (use?) the term 'bennies' to refer to benzedrine tablets..
Ian Fleming knew of the fondness of British espionage types for amphetamines. In his novels (tougher and grittier than the ridiculous films! ) James Bond takes benzedrine tablets on a few occasions. This actually features in the wikipedia enrty for benzedrine!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzedrine
________________________________
From: owner-corpora@lists.uib.no on behalf of pheacock@cambridge.org
Sent: Wed 06/12/2006 15:13
To: Harold Somers
Cc: corpora@lists.uib.no
Subject: Re: [Corpora-List] Numpties and bennies
My corpora of American English show four occurrences of "bennies" meaning
benefits (in a nonsexual way), two from the ANC, and I remember this usage
as being popular among 1980s yuppies. Examples are:
Since there is no dispute that Espy received some 35,000 worth of goods
and bennies from parties with interests before Agriculture and since
some of those parties pleaded guilty to making illegal gifts, it's easy
for the reader to wonder how the clean-sweep verdict was possible.
In addition to a package full of lush bennies, Merck provides 96% of
retiree health-care premiums.
Yes, they'll get these bennies from Uncle Sam - but not until they've
been on active duty for 30 days, which means that their families could
be left hanging in the meantime.
I can't logically reconcile her objections to gaining the weight with
the bennies of taking the role.
I have no occurrences of "numpties" or "numpty".
Cheers
Paul
Paul Heacock
Electronic Publishing Manager, ELT
Commissioning Editor, ELT Reference
Cambridge University Press
"Harold Somers"
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Subject
[Corpora-List] Numpties and bennies
12/06/2006 07:06
AM
A colleague has just emailed me suggesting that the word "numpty" has
become non-PC because of its association with Downs syndrome. I've never
made that association ... Has anyone else?
A trawl of the standard "references" suggests that numpty is a Scottish
slang word (meaning 'idiot' or 'incompetent person') and is being
considered fro inclusion in the next edition of the OED; but
interestingly its total absence from the BNC suggests either that it has
only recently entered the language, and/or that Scottish English is
under-represented in the BNC.
Would I be right in thinking that the word is entirely unknown in AmE?
On a similar theme, I was thinking about the word "benny", a slang term
which had a brief life in BrE. With the same meaning as numpty, its
etymology is a character in a soap (Crossroads I think) called Benny who
was "intellectually challenged". I seem to remember a news article
during the Falklands War in which soldiers were being admonished because
their slang word for Falkland Islanders was "bennies".
"A benny" occurs twice in the BNC, both times in the same source (KCE -
a conversation recorded by `Helena' (PS0EB)) as follows:
KCE 7007 so she had a bit of a benny it was
KCE 7260 I hadn't had a benny for a few days actually
Helena also talks about "bennies":
KCE 7258 Not that I ever have major bennies or anything
I'm guessing that here she means a "benzedrine" tablet, though that
interpretation doesn't really fit the syntax (a bit of a benny, major
bennies). Anyone any idea what a benny is in this context? (Perhaps the
surrounding text can help - what is the topic of the conversation?).
There's one other occurrence of "bennies" in the BNC, from "Skinhead" by
Nick Knight, the meaning of which I think is "Ben Sherman shirts"
ARP 213 Most skinhead girls, sometimes called rennes, would wear
bennies, button-fly red tags, white socks and penny loafers or monkey
boots.
Harold Somers
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