⇨ Fanny Adams; sweet Fanny Adams; sweet Miss Adams; sweet FA; FA; fannynoun nothing at all. From the brutal and maniacal murder, on 24th August 1867, of 8-year-old Fanny Adams, at Alton in Hampshire. Parts of her body were found over several days in different parts of the rural countryside. Upset with the tinned mutton that they were being served, British sailors in 1869 began to refer to the tins as containing the butchered contents of 'Sweet Fanny Adams'. It evolved into a suggestion of 'fuck', or 'nothing', and has been used in that sense in the C20 UK, 1914