If ya have big balls, it means you can take a lot of pain cuz you’re more likely to get it.
If you’re a pussy... well. I suppose the reason above and also being called feminine.
There's a plausible and well documented etymology for the sense of pussy in question, namely puss + y pussy = childish or colloquial word for "pet cat" term of endearment for a woman sweet or amiable woman sweet or effeminate man weakling/coward/sissy, with the parallel development of pussy = female genitals lurking somewhere in the background.
Puss is Germanic in origin, and definitely is not a shortened form of the Latinate word pusillanimous. The hypocoristic ending -y has been widely used in colloquial English for 500 years, and similarly has no connection with pusillanimous or any other Latinate word.
There's no positive evidence for the pusillanimous pussy derivation as a genuine historical source — it seems to be a sporadic folk etymology.
The pronunciation difference (onset [pj] vs. [p], vowel [ʊ] vs. [u]) makes the pusillanimous pussy derivation implausible in any case.
Because it takes courage to walk around with balls and saying shit knowing that it might provoke someone into attacking them.... and it could kill you.
Oh lord. Balls aren’t associated with toughness- they are associated with traditional masculinity- for reasons I would hope would be obvious, chiefly being that men tend to have balls after becoming adults and women tend not to. Balls are strongly associated with testosterone- a hormone linked to muscle mass, aggression, sexual virility, and in high doses primary and secondary male sex charictaristics. The association with toughness is second hand- because balls are “manly” and traditional masculinity holds that a “real man” exhibit certain behaviors like forwardness, toughness, bravery, etc- balls are associated with “real men,” and “real men” are associated with toughness and other virtues. Saying someone has balls, or that they need to “grow some balls” is a cruder way of saying they are or are not masculine. The phrase was intended for use among men- and if you find that offensive stop and ask yourself if you’d be flattered for someone to tell you that your beard was coming in nice
So in 2018, the world is far less male centric and male dominated than in the past, and traditional masculinity isn’t necessarily such a prized virtue, nor is it to be held as the highest standard of virtue a person could achieve. So ok not saying we can’t discuss changing the lexicon or some other solution- but if one asks “why is saying balls.. blah blah...” that is why. Because balls are not synonymous with “toughness” and it has nothing to do with having babies or being kicked in the nuts- balls serve here as a symbol of traditional masculinity and its virtues, because masculinity is male and so are balls- that is kinda the point. Not that everyone on earth should have balls, and not that women can’t or shouldn’t be brave or tough or strong etc. the term is an artifact from when the virtues socially associated with femininity were largely different from those of masculinity- that doesn’t make those virtues exclusively masculine.
If you’re a pussy... well. I suppose the reason above and also being called feminine.
Puss is Germanic in origin, and definitely is not a shortened form of the Latinate word pusillanimous. The hypocoristic ending -y has been widely used in colloquial English for 500 years, and similarly has no connection with pusillanimous or any other Latinate word.
There's no positive evidence for the pusillanimous pussy derivation as a genuine historical source — it seems to be a sporadic folk etymology.
The pronunciation difference (onset [pj] vs. [p], vowel [ʊ] vs. [u]) makes the pusillanimous pussy derivation implausible in any case.