"giboney" (message from B. Popik)

[Gerald Cohen]

    Following his 5/22/99 message on Ring slang, Barry Popik comments:

>    JIBONEY, JIBRONI, GIBONEY, et al.--No one (not even Jesse Sheidlower)
>remembers my postings here on this term?  ....

    I have been able to locate one of Bary's postings on this term, which I
now reprint.

----Gerald Cohen

>
>GIBONEY:
>
>    This is giboney, gaboney, gibroney, gabroney, jiboney, jaboney, jibroney,
>and jabroney.
>     I didn't find it in too many places.  RHDAS has:
>
>GIBRONEY n. (alter. JIBONEY) an Italian.--used contemptuously.
>1964-66 R. Stone _Hall of Mirrors_ 316: We are not strutting maniacs like the
>gibroney and the greaseball!
>
>     DARE has "jabronie" with a 1931 citation, meaning "an inept, stupid, or
>inexperienced person; a guy or fellow."  It's listed also as prison slang for
>"a greenhorn, a newly-arrived foreigner."
>     There is also a 1988 serial from El Cheapo Productions of Melrose, NY
>titled JABONEY.
>      I was going through my Jack Conway papers (William Safire still doesn't
>give Variety's Conway any credit for "showstopper") when I found it in 7
>August 1929, Variety, "Stories by Jack Conway."   This originally appeared in
>Variety, 20 May 1921:
>
>     Ain't that just like a woman?  Here I take this giboney and get him more
>publicity than he ever got in his life, and she could have a great outin'
>goin' to my funeral. Cuthie knows what I done for him but do you think he
>would alibi me to her?  Not on your life.  He likes to hear her pan me, for
>it makes him forget that it's me that's makin' the wheels go round.
>
>    I didn't find this word--in any of its many forms--in the TAD LEXICON.
> That surprised me.  If it does reflect on Italians, keep in mind that Conway
>also used "bozo" frequently in these stories.
>



gcohen at umr.edu