Double Yikes

Anyone ever hear of "frost your nanny" - as "to spank" ?

I haven't heard of this one. If it is to mean "to spank", maybe a more appropriate phrase would be "frost your fanny".

"Fanny" in the UK means female genitalia, not bottom as it does in the US.

Oh, my

I had no idea. Thanks for the clearing up that one. I never gave it much thought, but now that I know the British definition...how do you explain a British author by the name of Fanny Burney?
Also, how did fanny come to have 2 very different meanings in American and British English?

Who knows if Fanny Burney was teased as a girl? But Fanny must be a nickname for something, therefore she had the choice of using her given name if "Fanny" was too embarassing. There are lots of American guys named Dick (for Richard), and I assume their are English guys named Willy (for William), so having that type of nickname can't be so bad.

I'm not sure how it all started, but I know it dates back to at least eighteenth century since that's when the bawdy novel "Fanny Hill" (pun intended, I suspect) was published.

When I lived in Britian, an unfortunate American couple named "Bonker" visited London. (Bonk is slang for the f-word.) It made the newspapers!