Joystick

Joystick the control lever in an aeroplane or more latterly in video games dates from c.1910 and its origin is obscure. It is also slang for penis from a few years later. Without too much imagination, joystick is a good description for a penis, while the joy and exhilaration of flying could well have prompted the meaning of the control lever. Some etymologists, however, maintain that the control lever meaning of joystick has nothing to do with the joy that flying brings and is merely a corruption of joist, which refers to the mechanism of the control lever itself. There is little doubt that the control lever meaning of joystick appeared before the slang meaning and the fact that both are positioned in between the legs is purely coincidental.