Re: Undergraduate front-clipping (was 'mo=homo)

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

Some of these (if my memory is correct) are found in Richardy Semour's 
article on college slang (at Duke University) that was printed in PADS in 1966 or 
1965. Another place to look is in Connie Eble's work on American college slang.

I don't have either book with me at my present location.

In a message dated 3/6/04 1:23:41 AM, pds at VISI.COM writes:


> At 3/5/2004 02:53 PM -0500, Laurence Horn wrote:
> >I had thought 'za and 'rents were relatively recent undergraduate
> >slang, but when we were discussing these as exceptions to
> >generalizations on clipping last fall, one of my undergraduate
> >students suspected, and then confirmed, that it was part of his
> >father's active usage since the latter's undergraduate days.
> 
> From my undergraduate days:
> 'za
> 'rents
> 'ner = dinner
> 'tail = cocktail
> 'hue = Goodhue (dormitory)
> and while not as common as "libe"
> 'bary = library
> 
> All with the stressed syllable clipped.
> 
> These and many other terms were collected in a lexicon that was distributed
> to freshmen (in 1966 anyway).  Entitled "Loosely Speaking", it ran to at
> least 20 mimeographed pages.  Many of the usages had died out by the time I
> got there, (I recall "hum" = all-purpose, often euphemistic, verb.  "They
> were out there humming on the lawn."  "Let's hum a za."  Beautiful, but not
> used in my time.) but I can swear that the above were all in active use
> 1966-1970.
> 
>    Tom Kysilko        Practical Data Services
>    pds at visi.com       Saint Paul MN USA
>