"Shifters" and their "argot", 1922; some antedatings of OED

[Joel S. Berson]

Well, 12 hours later "crasher" and "squirrel, n." still seem to have survived.

I don't have a key to the vault, but I do apologize for not having
kept up to date with Language Log.

Jon, are some of the other 35 terms worth (your, or someone else's!
not my) investigating?  For example:

"egg harbor:" = 'free-admission dance".  From the NJ place-name?
"monog" = 'one who is goofy about one person at a time'.  A
shortening of "monogamous"?
"jammed" = "intoxicated'.
"lollygagger" = 'young man addicted to hallway spooning'.  "lollygag"
as verb dates from 1880, it appears.

Joel

At 12/3/2012 07:44 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>HDAS vaults hold a 1918 "tomato."
>
>JL
>
>On Sun, Dec 2, 2012 at 11:54 PM, Ben Zimmer
><bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu>wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> > Subject:      Re: "Shifters" and their "argot", 1922; some antedatings of
> > OED
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > On Sun, Dec 2, 2012 at 7:42 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> > >
> > > An op-ed column in today's NYTimes by Ben Schott, "A Ponzi Schems for
> > > Flappers".  Describes the "Shifters", members of an informal,
> > > unorganized organization that was a mixture of a financial scam and a
> > > (mainly?) sororal social group, which existed for a few months in 1922:
> > >
> > >
> >
> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/opinion/sunday/a-ponzi-scheme-for-flappers.html?pagewanted=all
> > >
> > > Amusing in itself, but also noteworthy for an "Argot of the
> > > Shifters", a short dictionary of their slang, credited to the Toledo
> > > News Bee of 1922 March 29.  My brief analysis reveals several
> > > possible antedatings of the OED:
> > > ----------
> > >
> > > Ankling along:  OED ankle v. sense 2.a is 1926--
> >
> > I've got cites for "ankle" (in various combinations) back to 1917 in
> > this Language Log post:
> >
> > http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004210.html
> >
> > --bgz
> >
> > --
> > Ben Zimmer
> > http://benzimmer.com/
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
>
>--
>"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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