Talk:Benny (slang)

I just edited this article for style a bit, but I would hardly say it is neutral. However, I am hesitant to edit it for content as I am not familiar with any of the history or usage of this term. Can anyone help?

My family has lived in the Toms River area for close to 40 years, and I have NEVER heard that Benny is some kind of light weight anti-Semetic slur. It truly stands for Bergen Essex Newark and New York. I'm not going to change the article until there are some corroborating opinions, but I just wanted to throw my two cents in.

I agree
I have lived on the Jersey Shore (in Monmouth County) for 43 of my 46 years. I have often heard and used the tern "benny" as a derogatory term for the non-locals who invade our beach towns every summer. However, I have NEVER heard it used with any anti-Semetic undertones. It is absolutely an ethnic-nonspecific insult that equally fits all out-of-towners without regard to their religions, nationalities, or races.

Most of the research I have seen attributes the etymology of the word "benny" to the train stations where the bennies started their treks down the Shore before there was a Garden State Parkway, namely Bayonne, Elizabeth, Newark and New York. I've also heard it attributed to the fact that they come for the summer benefits ("bennies") but aren't here in the off-season.

I really feel this entry ought to be revised to eliminate the suggestion that the term is anything more than locals versus tourists. At least, it ought to be identified as speculation or suspicion.

I agree
I've lived in Toms River for nearly all of my life (I'm 20), and my parents and grandparents used to rent a house in Seaside Park for many years before that. From the way I use it, it's people from the local area making a deragatory reference to non-locals, such as how Route 37 East in Toms River becomes a parking lot during the daytime. I was told that benny derives from Bayonne, Elizabeth, Newark and New York, as well, and I have also heard that originally, as the train stations were where they started their trek to the Shore, the word BENNY was actually used as the destination/ signage for some of the trains. I've only heard the anti-Semetic use as a rumor as to how the word came about, but no one I've asked has ever said that they've ever used the word benny in an anti-Semetic way.

Splitting disambig and content
I found the Benny entry, and saw that it was structured as a disambiguation page, but also had a lot of content about a particular item. This seemed very odd. So, I split the page into the disambiguation portion, and this page about one of the aspects. Given that the 'talk' was about the Jersey Shore insults, it seemed prudent to just move the page, and then re-create the disambiguation page. Hope this meets your approval -- Ch&#39;marr 15:26, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Please Note
Under the list of typical benny things, please don't put stuff about raising property value and such. "Benny" is simply a name for tourists who come to the Jersey Shore and what the stereotype is. I am from Spring Lake, New Jersey so I do know what I am talking about. Also, as was said above, it is not a racial or anti-Semetic slur. Unless there is some documented evidence of that, please do not put it in the article. Clamster5 23:56, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

English Benny
True, people in England do say having a "benny", but this describea an outburst rather than a type of person so doesn't really seem to fit on this page. However the term Benny is used by people of a certain age to derogatively describe a person of apparent low intelligence, derived from the character of the same name in tacky soap opera Crossroads. See article on the actor who played him. I'll mention this in the article.BennyFromCrossroads 11:08, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Military Slang
When British troops were in the Falkland Islands after the 1982 war, they would call the locals, "Bennys" after a slightly slow character on the ITV soap opera [‘Crossroads’]. He would talk in a thick West Country accent and habitually wore a knitted woollen cap. The locals complained about this derogatory term and the Army higher ups put an order out that the troops were not to call the locals, ‘Bennys’ any longer. The troops then started to call the locals, ‘Stills’, as in “He’s still a Benny.” The locals got their own back by calling the troops, “When I’s”, as in “When I was in ……”

Philjones828 07:24, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Benzedrine
Benny has at least in the drug culture, been slang for benzedrine. its become such a colloquilism that it can be ment to refer to any kind of sped whatsoever.that should be mentioned Janemansfield74 03:59, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Bayonne and the North Jersey Coast Line; sourcing
You can rest assured that Bayonne is not a stop on the North Jersey Coast Line; New York, Newark, and Elizabeth are prominent northern stops. Bay Head has been the southern terminus of the New York and Long Branch Railroad (which became the NJCL only thirty years ago) since 1881, so if BENNY has something to do with that train line, the acronym is more likely related to Bay Head (which was supposed to be one word, after the Bayhead developers that bought the land in the 1870s. Bayonne is off the beaten path. And Bergen trains run out of Hoboken and go east/west. Being from the Monmouth County area for over thirty years, it seems odd to me that anyone on the ocean would have ever thought about Bayonne or Bergen County when they pondered where these tourists were coming from. Bayonne and Bergen aren't names of any significance to the train line that feeds the shore, nor are they any more likely as origin points for pale-legged tourists than any other jurisdictions up north.

The sourcing of this article could be improved. Maybe this will be helpful? The current sourcing relies on lists of sources rather than the original articles, so I hunted down some of the latter for inclusion in the article. The New York Times "Havens, Weekender: Bradley Beach, NJ" article dated 11 June 2004 is based on a few local interviews in Bradley Beach and seems to have no substantial research behind it; it may be the origin for the Urban Dictionary and some of the other 2004-2006 sources, meaning that the article may suffer from what is called circular reporting. The Word Detective issue of 23 November 2004 and the Star-Ledger article of 1 July 2005 could have their roots in the NYT article as well. Someone might want to check out the 1999 Washington Post and 2002 Asbury Park Press articles cited in The American Dialect Society Mailing List to see if they have any substantial research behind them. Certainly more substantial newspaper or diary sources would be useful. I doubt they will be online.

IMO the NYT suggestion re the meaning of BENNY doesn't trump any of the other ideas. It's probably best to suggest the origin is undetermined and cite the various meanings with accompanying sources. --Pat (talk) 01:43, 13 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Am mystified by the constant removal of the section and sourcing addressing this issue. If there is any argument with the way it is written, any rewrites should be accompanied with new sourcing. They have not been. Furthermore, the fully sourced paragraph was replaced with a random suggestion that Bayonne "is a city on the coast", which a.)several Hudson County real estate agents' marketing ploys notwithstanding, isn't accurate and b.)has absolutely no bearing on the oft-repeated myth to which that section refers. Again, I've no problem with properly sourced replacements. Erasing an entire section for no apparent reason, however, is a bit weird.Terrapin7 (talk) 23:28, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Bayonne (and the terminal in Jersey City) used to be part of the Main Line of the Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ) before all trains were routed to Newark Penn Station in 1967. As the now-North Jersey Coast Line was co-owned by the CNJ, many would go to the shore from Bayonne, so there's no mystery why Bayonne would be the B in Benny (presuming the etymology is correct). It's just archaic. oknazevad (talk) 19:57, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

philanthropist?
I vaguely remember something about some philanthropist bringing kids from say Phili to the shore. It was a benifit of be employed by ???

As for me I grew up in Middlesex County, but have(had) family in Toms River and Seaside park. (User: Karen) 6 Jan 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.103.60.125 (talk) 03:47, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Bennys Landing, NJ
I used to have a place there (Google Maps - try it). The locals (retirees from Philadelphia) had the idea that Benny referred either to sesame seeds (Benne) or to dead bodies of the folks that died on the barrier islands supporting today's Stone Harbor and Wildwood. This would challenge the notion that there is a precise geographical (or cryptographical) explanation for the application of the term and tend to generalize it, at least in a still-circumscribed lexical geography. Certainly it adds a layer of meaning to the antipathy already demonstrated between the offshore and mainland people of the region. Swamid1 (talk) 03:09, 27 March 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Swamid1 (talk • contribs) 03:06, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

English Usage again
In addition to referring to someone of low intelligence, benny can be used as a short term for "bender" meaning gay, (derogatorily, but not usually used against actual homosexual ppl but friends simply to bug them)... this article still needs a LOT of editing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.22.21.24 (talk) 17:02, 27 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I think this usage is also the one behind the playground taunt "Are you a benny tied to a tree"; when the 'victim' answers in the negative this gives the questioner free rein to run around the playground shrieking "Benny on the loose!" as loudly as his lungs will bear. Mr Larrington (talk) 19:27, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Local point of view
I grew up in Toms River New Jersey and most of my friends and colleagues consider the term to be an acronym for Bayonne, Elizabeth, Newark, New York. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.127.172.204 (talk) 09:59, 8 September 2010 (UTC)