[Ads-l] monkey in the middle (1952)

Mark Mandel markamandel at GMAIL.COM
Mon Jan 27 18:25:04 UTC 2020


My demographics for this are close to Laurence's in space though later in
time: Manhattan, Upper West Side, circa 80s-90s (West *n*th Streets, not
decades; those were early sixties for me), including where I lived and the
K-12 school I attended, both in the first block from Central Park West.
Also, like Laurence, a group of boys only, with me as the nerdy victim.

Now that you mention it, Wilson, I do remember the name "Saluggi", though
it was a long time till I learned a way to spell it. There are several;
Barry Popik, an indefatigable and reliable investigator of word and
expression histories (as I'm sure you all know), has an article about it on
his website at
https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/salugi_or_saloogie.

Saluggi's, I find, is the name of a restaurant/pizzeria in New York with a
couple of locations (http://www.saluggis.com), but I haven't seen anything
on their website about the name itself, and the "game" is probably much,
much older than the chain.

Mark Mandel

On Mon, Jan 27, 2020, 10:27 AM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:

> > On Jan 27, 2020, at 10:24 AM, Margaret Winters <mewinters at WAYNE.EDU>
> wrote:
> >
> > I'm pretty sure we didn't have anything called "Saluggi" - but I'm
> remembering about a decade later, Brooklyn instead of Washington Heights,
> maybe just for boys…??
>
> Our group was indeed just boys, but I don’t know if there was a crucial
> gender divide. My previous dialectological inquiries (i.e. asking random
> people my age who grew up in NYC) do suggest a localized use within
> Manhattan extending to the east side as well as Washington Heights, but I
> don’t have enough data points to propose an isogloss.
> >
> > ----------------------------
> > MARGARET E WINTERS
> > Former Provost
> > Professor Emerita - French and Linguistics
> > Wayne State University
> > Detroit, MI  48202


> ________________________________
> > From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of
> Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> > Sent: Monday, January 27, 2020 10:07 AM
> >
> > Hunh.  For me, b. 1945 NYC, growing up in Washington Heights, there were
> not two versions of a single game, but two very different “games”. The
> actual game was Monkey-in-the-MIddle (aka Keepaway).  The one where you
> (not me) take something from a younger or vulnerable kid (sometimes me),
> perhaps a hat or a baseball glove, and pass it back and forth among your
> confederates, was Saluggi.  At least that’s how I’d spell it, given what I
> remember about its pronunciation at the time.  So you could say “Let’s play
> Monkey-in-the-MIddle/Keepaway, I’ll be it”.  But you could not, in the
> early to mid 1950s, call “Let’s play Saluggi, I’ll be it”.  Barring
> clinical masochism, I suppose, but we didn’t know from that.
> >
> > LH
> >
> >
> >> On Jan 27, 2020, at 7:48 AM, Geoffrey Nathan <geoffnathan at WAYNE.EDU>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> Like Margaret and Mark I remember the quote game unquote, and not with
> fondness. I only remember
> >> the malicious version, and I, being the nerdy kid, was usually the
> victim. Again, early sixties.
> >>
> >> Geoff
> >>
> >> Geoffrey S. Nathan
> >> http://blogs.wayne.edu/proftech/
> >> geoffnathan at wayne.edu
> >>
> >> From: Mark Mandel<mailto:markamandel at GMAIL.COM>
> >> Sent: Monday, January 27, 2020 12:52 AM
> >> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU<mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >> Subject: Re: monkey in the middle (1952)
> ----------------------
> >>
> >> I do not like the memories this brings up in me.
> >>
> >> I knew the expression all too well as a schoolboy in New York in the
> 1960s.
> >> After school some of my classmates would play this "game" (also called
> >> "keep-away") with my hat or other possession snatched from me, yelling
> >> "Monkey in the middle!" as they threw my property to each other over my
> >> head and I ran frantically between them, trying in vain to reach one of
> >> them before they could throw it out of my reach.
> >>
> >> MAM
> >>
> >> On Sun, Jan 26, 2020, 6:08 PM Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> The children's game "monkey in the middle" is in OED3 (Sept. 2002
> update)
> >>> from 1980. Here are some cites from New Jersey newspapers in the '50s.
> >>>
> >>> ---
> >>> https://www.newspapers.com/clip/43065809/monkey_in_the_middle/
> >>> Belleville (NJ) Times, July 24, 1952, p. 6, col. 6
> >>> Mrs. Virtue, one of our directors, made up some five bean bags, and
> taught
> >>> us the game "monkey in the middle." It sure has had great success and
> is
> >>> enjoyed by youngsters of all ages.
> >>> ---
> >>> https://www.newspapers.com/clip/43065650/monkey_in_the_middle/
> >>> Verona-Cedar Grove (NJ) Times, July 28, 1955, p. 2, col. 5
> >>> Despite the heat wave the children seemed to have quite an active week
> on
> >>> the Forest Avenue playground. Although checkers, kings, Chinese
> checkers.
> >>> Mad Maze, Lucky Shot and horseshoes were the most popular, there were
> still
> >>> some badminton, softball, dodge ball, spud and Monkey in the Middle
> games.
> >>> ---
> >>> https://www.newspapers.com/clip/43053896/monkey_in_the_middle/
> >>> Courier-News (Plainfield, NJ), June 11, 1957, p. 25, col. 1
> >>> More than 200 children and their parents participated in the annual
> picnic
> >>> and field day of the Hebrew Institute held Sunday at Green Brook
> Park...
> >>> Awards in games were as follows: Relay -- Jay Cherlow, Jack Ruden,
> Larry
> >>> Sletzinger, Joel Taub, Jonathan Lippman, Mark Hitzig, Marilyn Siegel;
> nut
> >>> potato race, Jay Lichtenstein; Monkey in the Middle, Joy Herzog...
> [etc.]
> >>> ---
> >>> https://www.newspapers.com/clip/43059206/monkey_in_the_middle/
> >>> The Millburn & Short Hills (NJ) Item, July 11, 1957, p. 6, col. 4
> >>> The middle age group have a variety of games: volley ball, relay races
> >>> (which are very exciting), giant steps, monkey in the middle, red
> light,
> >>> red rover, and checkers. The wee ones have two favorite games, which
> they
> >>> play constantly: Simon Says, and Duck, Duck, Goose.
> >>> ---
> >>>
> >>> --bgz
>

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



More information about the Ads-l mailing list