[Ads-l] Random miscellany: _scream on_

[Jonathan Lighter]

A great number of older AAVE slang terms only got into print in the 1960s
and early '70s, as more black novelists, poets, and playwrights began to be
published.

Even if not all can be absolutely confirmed, Wilson pre-1960s recollections
are thus extremely valuable.

He knows his stuff.

JL


On Tue, Nov 22, 2016 at 2:02 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> Occasionally, a blast from my slang past pops into my head. In this case,
> it was _scream on_, once an extremely-hip term in 1950's Saint Louis.
>
> Unfortunately, the only way to know whether this is in HDAS is to go to the
> source and ask Jon to check. However, it is in Green's:
>
> "scream on (v.)
>
> 1. [1960s–70s] (US black) to betray a confidence, to inform against, to
> gossip about.
> 2. [1960s+] (mainly US black) to attack verbally."
>
> On the basis of personal experience, FWIW, I find these definitions to be
> exact, the phrase already being used with all of these meanings by ca.
> 1952.
>
> One evening ca. 1965, Myron Cohen was on TV telling a story about annoying
> his wife to the point that she "screamed on" him about what he was doing.
> Needless to say, I was really caught off guard.
>
> Youneverknow.
> --
> -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
>



-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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