G-string

Fred Shapiro fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU
Tue May 6 16:09:18 UTC 2003


On Tue, 6 May 2003, Laurence Horn wrote:

> >I think the G-string (originally a string supporting a loincloth or so) was
> >most likely named after the lowest string of a violin, although the
> >alternative of coincidental origin from some Amerind word is not impossible
> >AFAIK.
> >
> Is it relevant that the earliest listed cited (1878, 1885) spelled it
> "gee(-)string", while the musical strings are always spelled G string
> (with letter and sans hyphen)?

Also note the third citation in OED: 1891 Harper's Mag. Dec. 36/2 Some of
the boys wore only G-strings (as, for some reason, the breech-clout is
commonly called on the prairie).  Were prairie folk that musically
oriented that they would come up with a musical term for this item?

Fred Sha[orp


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
  Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
Yale Law School                             forthcoming
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



More information about the Ads-l mailing list