Lockjaw: Locust Valley (1965), Long Island (1972), Larchmont (1973)

[Joel S. Berson]

At 6/18/2011 11:10 PM, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
>Here's another early (if non-alliterative) one, with enough later hits
>to show that it's at least reasonably established:
>
>1968 S. Birmingham _The Right People: A Portrait of the American Social
>Establishment_ 195 As for the accent, Barbara Best calls it
>"Philadelphia paralysis," or "Main Line lockjaw," pointing out that it
>is not unlike "Massachusetts malocclusion."

What -- "Massachusetts malocclusion." isn't alliterative?  :-)

Checking in from the Commonwealth,
Joel


>Jesse Sheidlower
>OED
>
>On Sun, Jun 12, 2011 at 07:37:10AM -0400, Ben Zimmer wrote:
> > When I looked into these expressions in 2005, I found "Locust Valley
> > lockjaw" from 1970, "Long Island lockjaw" from 1977, and "Larchmont
> > lockjaw" from 1986:
> >
> > http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0502A&L=ADS-L&P=R4067
> >
> > Earlier cites from Google Books (snippet view, but they all look legit):
> >
> > * Locust Valley lockjaw
> > Noel Parmentel, "John Lindsay - Less Than Meets the Eye," _Esquire_,
> > Oct. 1965, p. 156
> > He is as oblivious to the high gloss as he is to the Locust Valley
> > Lockjaw spoken by so many of his peers.
> >
> > * Long Island lockjaw
> > Hercules Molloy, _Oedipus in Disneyland_, 1972, p. 66
> > He could detect Long Island Lockjaw across the room and distinguish it
> > instantly from Manhattan Pentameter (an onomatopoeia).
> >
> > * Larchmont lockjaw
> > Marcia Seligson, _The Eternal Bliss Machine: America's Way of
> > Wedding_, 1973, p. 185
> > But the voice changes that image, with a uniquely cultivated way of
> > speaking that someone once labeled "Larchmont Lockjaw" because it
> > emerges from a mouth that looks to be frozen into an unmoving smile
> > and teeth that seem clenched together for dear life.
> >
> >
> > --bgz
> >
> > --
> > Ben Zimmer
> > http://benzimmer.com/
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
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