Card-game names

[Jonathan Lighter]

I hypothesize *"Dirty Gertie" as a syn. of "Dirty Dora," but Google finds nothing. Why the cover-up ?

  There is a reliable report, though, that "Dirty Gertie" was one of Ezra Pound's unappreciative names for Gertrude Stein, perhaps as far back as 1924 (J. J. Wilhelm, _Ezra Pound in London and Paris, 1908-1925._ [University Park: Penn. State U. P., 1990], p. 263.)

  A foolish song, "Dirty Gertie from Bizerte," received much publicity in 1943.

  JL

Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Laurence Horn
Subject: Re: Card-game names
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At 2:57 AM -0500 3/9/06, Meredith Dixon wrote:
>On Thu, 9 Mar 2006 00:54:45 -0500, you [m a m] wrote:
>
>>Nor I, but I know at least two nicknames in Hearts for the Queen of Spades,
>>which is the card you least want to get:
>> Dirty Dora
>> the Black Bitch
>
>I know her as the Black Maria.

Ditto, and pronounced /m@ rai @/, as in the way they call the wind.

Incidentally, she isn't *always* the card you least want to
get--remember the Shooting the Moon option.

(I never heard the game called anything but "Hearts", but the Queen
of Spades did have other less delicate names than the Black Maria.)

As for Wilson's other queries, I've always heard "Crazy Eights", not
"Eights", although I'd probably recognize it under either moniker.

larry

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