Flapper slang (1922)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

Looking for "bozark" the other day on N-Archive, I came across this piece
packed with flapper lingo...

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Davenport Democrat And Leader (Iowa), May 28, 1922, p. 32, col. 2-3

Nowadays flappers and shifters gabble a new lingo, the collegiate
slanguage, that gives our good old U. S. ladyfood some awful scramblin'.
Imagine, sport, an old-timer droppin' into a pitcher show to read the
movie ads and rest his dogs, and gettin' planted alongside a coupla
world-weary little old wimmen — 17 or 18 years old — all fed up on
dancin', love, vamps and pitchers, and disgusted with tiresome people and
parents. The gabby bobbed blonde is givin' first release of the troubles
of herself and a girl friend while shootin' the circuit the night before.
She chatters fluent collegiate, and she may be either a laundry queen, a
cigar packer or a hi-sweetie. Her weary-bobbed brune chum is a good ear
player, gettin' this first-run stuff:
"We bloused into a nosebaggery with a flat-wheeler and boller-factory, and
they hit the dopesheet for the boston chow that a goofy greaseball served
as we listened in on the feathers and clothesline scandal. A kippy pair of
oilcans, I'll say! So we made the blow and gave 'em the air, and then
crashed a jazz-garden where a flock of sub-chasers and dumb-doras were
rattlin' their dogs. We lined up a brace of Goldstein strangle holders,
who were the cat's pajamas and bee's knees — if you went for their blaah.
I went goofy over one toppy wally, and while neckin' with him I glimmed
Percy foxin' with his new tomato, and servin' the apple sauce. Some
rugshaker for that bell-polisher, sis! Woof! Woof!
"Then I jazzed a whirl with a cake-eater on parole but sluffed him for a
fluky corn-shredder with a flat tire, who ditched his bozark, to do my
corn-crackin', my dog-kennels gettin' jammed somethin' fierce. Altho half
plastered and havin a hipoil plant, he was no cuddle cootie, for he
handled his ice-tongs like I had T.B. Then we hooked a dumb-otis and
scandal-walker for the yellow dimbox, and I blouse to the homehouse to
dingle-dangle this dewdropper until time to mattress. Ye gods! What a slow
night! Nobody loves me. I hope it gets hot, so's I ken wear my furs."
On the level, sport. I ast you — Wouldn't that lingo get a guy's goat?
Admittin' times is changin', and that a lotta speedhounds is operatin' on
last year's license, what chance has an old stager to wise up on an earful
of this new slanguage?
Say, boy — he'll never get to first base. OLD-TIMER.
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Much of this can be deciphered with the "Flappers' Dictionary" that was
circulating in various forms in 1922-- see Barry Popik's post from 2003
for one version:

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0309D&L=ADS-L&P=R3333


--Ben Zimmer