Card-game names

[Wilson Gray]

On 3/9/06, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Card-game names
>
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>
> 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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And, of course, Larry, that's my point: you say "hearts," but "crazy
eights." You mix a short form with a long form! That's a new one.
Heretofore, my experience has been that people use only the short forms or
use only the long forms, totally unpredictably with repect to the usual
parameters. And, right off the bat, I discover that there's a third
possibility: at least one speaker who selects one from Column A and one from
Column B! As the Stones, among others, have remarked, "Ain't that a bitch?"
There's nothing but craziness, where the names of these particular card
games are concerned.

To me, this kind of thing, though it's trivial, is really fascinating,
weird, and a lot of fun.

-Wilson



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