"Hustle [one's] nuts"

[Wilson Gray]

Oh, I'm totally familiar with the gesture, having employed it myself
from about the age of ten, when I noticed all the other boys and young
men doing it. It's definitely not an intimate or private gesture in
any sense. If it has any meaning I don't know it. (I found it truly
laughable when white folk went nuts <har! har!> over Michael Jackson
grabbing his crotch in a video, a gesture that carries less weight
amongst the colored than wiping one's mouth with the back of one's
hand. I loved Dave Chappelle's sketch, "I Know Black People"!). I
spent my elementary- and high-school years in Catholic schools and no
nun, priest or Jesuit (it's possible to be a Jesuit without being a
priest) was ever moved to say a word about this
essentially-meaningless gesture.

But I never knew that anyone had a name for it till I saw that phrase
in the review of Lily Tomlin's act. Since the reviewer was extremely
more likely to have been a white person than a black person, I
wondered whether this was a term generally known by white people,
among whom the gesture is, AFAIK, rare enough to attract attention and
motivate the creation of a name for it. Cf. the case of the tuft of
hair under one's bottom lip, whose popularity among black men predates
Dizzy Gillespie's and which I've worn since I was able to grow it.
There was no name for it that I ever heard or read till, from my aged
point of view, quite recently.

BTW, FWIW, the style among boys and young men of wearing one's pants,
usually Levi's, low enough that one's boxers - the undie of choice
among black males back in the day, for God only knows how long - my
father, who died at the age of 97, wore them, as do I - were plainly
visible was hip when I was in the eighth grade, 1949-50. Since I'm
only a couple of months older than Cosby, making me feel that he
himself probably sported that look in his youth, his current
inveighing against the style now seems rather hypocritical. But, I
must also admit that there are many aspects of black culture that
embarrass *me*, when they become known to "The Other Group" (one of
*many* BE terms for white people). Such as talking loud (which bothers
me, even when I'm with white people who do it) and using "nigger" and
"motherfucker" on busses? / buses? and elsewhere, in the presence of
The Man. Unless it's being used by Pryor, Chappelle or others in the
comedy business, such as the characters in the animated version of the
comic strip, The Boondocks. Then, it strikes me as funnier than a
motherfucker. And no, I don't consciously know why that should be the
case. Maybe it's that my love of parody supersedes any other emotional
reaction.

Further FWIW: I've heard that Chappelle gave up millions to continue
his TV show because he became convinced that white people were
laughing *at* him - and, by extension, at *all* black people - and not
*with* him.

-Wilson

-Wilson

-Wilson

-Wilson


All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain



On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 5:06 PM, George Thompson
<george.thompson at nyu.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "Hustle [one's] nuts"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Meaning perhaps a posture or way of walking that would direct attention to the crotch?  Jelly Roll Morton, in his interviews for the Library of Congress, remembered that, in old-time New Orleans, young toughs had a way of walking called "shooting the agate".
>
> GAT
>
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com>
> Date: Sunday, November 23, 2008 6:45 pm
> Subject: Re: "Hustle [one's] nuts"
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
>> FWIW, it was mentioned in a review of a Lily Tomlin stage show from
>> many (25?) years ago. In one of her sketches she played a lounge
>> lizard. The reviewer wrote that she was masculine to the extent of
>> _hustling "his" nuts_ or words to that effect.
>>
>> I've never heard the phrase spoken and that was the only time that
>> I've ever seen it in print (Time? Newsweek? NYT?). The writer didn't
>> say what the phrase meant, but, to me, its meaning seems "intuitively
>> obvious," to coin a phrase.
>>
>> I just got tired of waiting for it to come up again. "If you want a
>> thing done, do it yourself," as the saying goes.
>>
>> -Wilson
>>
>> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
>> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>> -----
>> -Mark Twain
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 5:31 PM, Scot LaFaive <slafaive at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > Poster:       Scot LaFaive <slafaive at GMAIL.COM>
>> > Subject:      Re: "Hustle [one's] nuts"
>> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >
>> > Unfortunately not until now.
>> >
>> > Scot
>> >
>> >
>> > On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 12:17 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> >> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> >> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>> >> Subject:      "Hustle [one's] nuts"
>> >> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >>
>> >> Is anyone else familiar with this expression used to describe what's
>> >> otherwise described by "grab [one's] crotch" or some such?
>> >>
>> >> -Wilson
>> >>
>> >> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint
>> to
>> >> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>> >> -----
>> >> -Mark Twain
>> >>
>> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> >>
>> >
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> >
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org