_Raunch[ing]_ "drink[ing]"

[Jonathan Lighter]

For some reason "raunchy" became part of the core vocabulary of the Army Air
Corps (at least at Randolph Field, Texas) in the 1930s. The usual sense was
"messy; dirty; filthy; slipshod." From "dirty; filthy," evidently, came the
now usu. sense of "smutty; pornographic." [Cf. the development of "smutty"
itself.]

The prior history of _raunchy_ is unknown. WWII seems to have popularized it
everywhere.

Thoughts?

JL

On Tue, Mar 29, 2011 at 6:46 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: _Raunch[ing]_ "drink[ing]"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Tue, Mar 29, 2011 at 6:16 PM, Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > 1942 Nelson Algren _Never Come Morning_ (rpt. N.Y.: Signet, 1969) 43: Us
> > hoods don't do nothin' but shoot dice an' raunch broads.
> >
> > 1968 _Playboy_ (Aug.) 78: Some of those sexually explicit "adult movies"
> > where people go raunching around in theie whole skins.
> >
>
> Right. Those et sim. are the meanings that I'm familiar with. Well,
> I'm also familiar with "raunchy" and pretty much synonymous with
> "funky" in the BE sense of "having foul, unpleasant odor."
>
> --
> -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
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