What is a molly?
Jordan, she of the comedy breasts and even more more humorous husband, has attacked Liz Hurley for dressing her son like "a molly". She went on to promise that she would not molly-fy (so to speak) her own son. "I like to keep him trendy - I don't want him to be a molly. I think that must be a Brighton term," she announced to Heat magazine, with a mixture of pride and indignation.
Molly has many meanings in the UK. In the north-east it is used to insult those who were once called "square". In south London I have heard it join a litany of other words used to abuse and intimidate gay men. However, Jordan was right when she claimed that her use of the word was specific to Brighton. I should know - I have lived in Brighton for the past 12 years, and am now married to a woman who was born here. Down on the beach, "molly" is an insult bandied about by schoolchildren, and refers to those kids who, for reasons of sartorial self-neglect or simple, contemptible poverty, look as if their mothers have dressed them. Or, to quote my wife: "The girls who called other girls mollies were the cool kids. The mollies always wore tweedy old knickers and your great-granny's stuff." The root of the word is, apparently, "mollycoddled".
We should be thankful to Jordan (who I have interviewed twice) for keeping ancient east Sussex dialect alive. Her other favourite word is "doughnut", which, in the context she uses it, refers to anyone more stupid than her. Thus, when she is not accompanied by Peter Andre, it is almost never employed.
This, after all, is a woman who, having shown no knowledge whatsoever of the contents of her two autobiographies, revealed herself to be someone who has written two more books than she has likely read.
guardian
