"No soap!"

[Gerald Cohen]

    Peter McGraw (Nov.24)  inquires:

>A friend remarked to me yesterday on the expression "no soap" (meaning
>"nothing doing") and asked if I had any idea where it came from
>(etymologically, not geographically speaking).  I didn't.  Does anybody out
>there?  I'm not aware that it's regional.

**** I have treated this expression in:
Gerald Leonard Cohen: _Studies in Slang_, part 2 (= _Forum Anglicum_, vol.
16), Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1989.  pp.150-151; article title: ' _No
Soap!_ "Nothing Doing, No Go"'
--------The article ponts out that  'soap' was a criminal slang term for
'money.'  Cf.  an 1865 attestation  from _Leaves From The Diary of a
Celerated Burglar and Pickpocket_ 1865 :  'How They "Reefed" Up His
"Leather" And Secured His "Soap".'

   So the original context of 'No soap!' was apparently one in which a
criminal was asked for a loan (or was about to be asked by a perennial
borrower.).  The reply 'No soap' simply meant 'No money.'

    Cf. also slang 'No dice!' (= Nothing doing!)--clearly with an original
reference to refusing dice to a gambler.  And  cf.  an 1865  example of 'No
bottle'  with the same meaning ('Nothing doing;  no go), clearly from an
original context  of a bartender refusing a bottle of wine to a customer:

    _(Leaves...._, 1865):  'she [a thieving hen] flew over onto the counter
and "grannied" [looked at]  the "slide" [ apparently: money box], but that
was no "bottle," it was "screwed" [locked];  so there was nothing for it
but dry goods.'

    So, 'no soap,' 'no dice,' 'no bottle'--all originally  expressing
refusal to someone unreliable.

----Gerald Cohen



gcohen at umr.edu