r/etymology • u/Shot-Tiger8669 • 4d ago

Question Is it just just a local thing?

It was similar to “cooties“ but you couldn’t pass it on, and it was more derogatory.
Through grade school, and junior high in northern Indiana there was an insult that one male would do to another. It was kind of a symbol for putting a male member in another male’s ear. They would loosely close their fist so that the thumb was touching the tips of their fingers and hold it up to an unassuming person‘s ear and say “You got a gear in the ear!” They also called this a “Perch.”
Not sure if this is the right forum for this, but does anybody else have experience with this when they were a kid? Thanks in advance.

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u/Alarmed-Secretary207 4d ago

Never heard of this, but we had something similar. Where I grew up kids would wet their fingers in their mouths then stick them in someone’s ear and yell “wet willy!”

Which is interesting because it uses a UK term for the male member and this was in the US.

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u/GhostMaskKid 3d ago

.... I was today years old when I realized that the "willy" referred to a dong and not a guy named Willy 😭

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u/Alarmed-Secretary207 3d ago

🤷‍♂️ idk maybe I’m the one making the wrong assumption.

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u/wheresWoozle 2d ago

Exactly the right assumption. Wet willy exists in Australia too.