Meaning of abbreviation ‘BBs’ in a 1940s Book

[EllieQ]

I’m reading Confusion by Elizabeth Jane Howard, which is set during WW2, and was puzzled by the abbreviation ‘BBs’ in a scene where one of the characters is thinking about the usual shopping list she would have for a trip to to London - the line is ‘BBs for Clary and Polly’ who are teenage girls.

Google hasn’t helped as I’ve just got results for Bulletin Board Services (know as BBS) or the BBC. I’m assuming it’s something underwear or toiletry related, but can’t figure it out! Does anyone have any idea what it could stand for?

Best bonnets???

Literally no idea

Chat gpt gives the following suggestion

"Interestingly, this abbreviation isn't widely recognized today, but it has been specifically noted by lexicographers because of this very passage from Confusion. R. W. Holder's Dictionary of Euphemisms quotes the shopping list:

"...Start-rite shoes for Wills and Rory, summer vest for Aunt Dolly, esoteric haberdashery for the Duchy... BBs for Clary and Polly."

and glosses "BBs" as bust bodices."

Oh what a good puzzle, I love stuff like this. Hope someone has an answer (in other words I’m placemarking).

I'm wondering if it's a short form for a liberty bodice.

Yes, bust bodice would be my guess.

Bust bodice was the common earlier term for what we now call a brassiere/bra, and it was often shortened to BB; plural BBs. It was still familiar in 1940s Britain.

It’s not a modern acronym - just a period shorthand that’s dropped out of use, which is why web searches only give you BBS/BB tech results. Elizabeth Jane Howard would have known it from her own 1940s youth, so she uses it naturally without explanation.

I hate it when Google feeds me some AI, especially when what it says is nonsense. Its first suggestion was that it was something to do with bobby sox, i.e. ankle socks, but bust bodices seems far more likely and that was its next suggestion.

Just read "...were affectionately—and sometimes mockingly—referred to as "BBs," short for British Bodices. However, the official brand name was always the Liberty Bodice."

Bras

I must ask my Mum next time I see her but I think in my early childhood (early 1960s) I wore a liberty bodice. I have a dim memory of fiddly buttons. Goodness knows why anybody would make dressing young children harder than it needs to be!

Edited to add I see rubber buttons were indeed a feature of the Liberty Bodice. That's what I remember. How very odd. I had ordinary vests later in childhood, thank goodness.

I googled.. Abbreviations for grocery items in the forties. Apparently tinned goods were often abbreviated by grocers when dealing out rations. BBs seems to mean baked beans.

Yes, bust bodices, hence the slightly coy euphemism.

But not in this context. No one needs to travel to London to buy baked beans, nor would they be buying them solely for teenage girls.

Never mind Google and its baked beans. I can quote you my grandmother and mother on this one, and they used it for a bodice.

...but beans seem a bit strange to go on a shopping trip to London for 😂 I also think bodices/bras.

Sorry yes slow reading/typing this morning, cross posted with you

Thank you for this - I've cried laughing at the thought of going on a special shopping trip to London to purchase baked beans for the teen girls.

Logging on To mumsnet this morning was totally worthwhile. 😁 I had a passed on from cousin liberty bodice as a small child. Only wore it once. Tiny buttons and stiflingly hot.

😂 I'm feeling incredibly stupid! I rushed off googling before I'd properly read the op, didn't spot London, that'll learn me haha!

Also a sobering reminder that Google seems to be totally random nowadays too. No replacement for people's actual memories or experiences. Scary how inaccurate its getting with the rise of AI stating things so confidently and "factually".

Yes! Thank you for this thread!

Thank you everyone! I’d heard of Liberty Bodices, but not that they were also called bust bodices - mystery solved 😊

You've reminded me to ask my father again about the terms used by his factory-working parents (we found some oddities on Ancestry for occupations, and he knew what they were when Google didn't).

I love you - you've made my day. I told DD that in a few years i'll be going on the traditional trip to London to buy baked beans to mark her first steps into womanhood.

I would have immediately read that as bust bodices.

I had a similar confusion a few years ago when re-reading "What Katy Did" and they talk about needing to buy new India Rubbers. Still no clue what they are!