Puff the Magic Dragon

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Sun, Oct 21, 2001 at 06:31:46PM -0400, James A. Landau wrote:
> In a message dated 10/19/2001 10:16:12 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> slang at BLUEYONDER.CO.UK writes:
>
> > from Gregory R Clark _Words of the Vietnam War_ (1990)
> >
> >  AC-47 (Spooky, Gooney Bird, Dragon-ship, Puff-the-Magic Dragon)  C-47
> >  aircraft modified to perform as a gunship
>
> "Gooney Bird" is a term applied to any Douglas DC-3, including the military
> C-47 cargo plane and the AC-47 gunship.  On the other hand "Puff the Magic
> Dragon" and "dragon ship" and "Spooky" are terms that are applied to gunships
> but not to unarmed C-47's or unarmed C-130's.

I'd point out that the evidence in HDAS and OED files support this.
_Gooney bird_ is attested from 1942 in reference to DC-3 or its variants
(the same year, by the way, that _gooney bird_ 'albatross or the like_
is first attested, though the non-elaborated _gooney_ is many decades
older). _Puff the magic dragon_ is found only in reference to AC-47s,
with citations from 1966 (multiple sources) onwards.

Jesse Sheidlower
OED