Studies in Slang, VII.

September 2, 2016 by 2 Comments

Searching for something else, I happened on the complete online text (pdf) of Barry A. Popik and Gerald Leonard Cohen, Studies in Slang, VII (2006). Anyone interested in slang will want to check it out; a few article titles picked at random:

POPIK: Tin Pan Alley origin is explained in a 1903 newspaper article

COHEN: To need hair of the dog that bit you ‘need a bit more booze to get over a hangover

COHEN: Lose one’s marbles–Jonathan Lighter’s 1902 attestation refutes my suggestion of a 1920s Missouri origin of the expression

POPIK: Cakewalk–1897 New-Orleans Times-Democrat article explains it was originally a marriage ceremony among French blacks in Louisiana

POPIK: Slang applesauce (spoken dismissively) derives from a once popular but corny joke, possibly in a minstrel context

The joke involves a teacher with twelve pupils and only eleven apples, and “corny” is a good word for it.

Comments

  1. Y says
    September 2, 2016 at 5:09 pm

    Thanks for the bit about the ‘cakewalk’, incidentally not at all an easy dance.
    I hope someone explains the etymology of ofay some day. Jonathon Green examines the common explanations, and rejects them all, leaving the etymology unknown.

  2. languagehat says
    March 27, 2025 at 11:40 am

    Same with the OED (entry revised 2004):

    Origin unknown. A large number of etymologies have been suggested (as in quots. 1932 at sense A, 1977 at sense A), but none are convincing; for summaries see J. E. Lighter Hist. Dict. Amer. Slang (1997) II. s.v., and Dict. Amer. Regional Eng. (1996) III. s.v.

Speak Your Mind

*