Goopher Feathers & a Big Bang (1949)

[Dennis R. Preston]

"Goopher feathers" sounds an awful lot like "foo-foo dust," which has
southern perhaps African-American origins. In my family's usage,
"foo-foo dust" was the mildly sarcastic magical cure for small
problems (especially in such phrases as "Here, let's sprinkle some
foo-foo dust on it"), particularly unreasonable requests or trifling
ills, perhaps especially children's. DARE has "goofer" (and "goofer
dust" in citations under "goofer" in this "magic sense," marked
chiefly southern and African-American). Oddly, DARE has "foo-foo" in
the obviously West African cooked yam sense but only a single entry
for "foo-foo" as dust, and then as a synonym for "dust bunny," "dust
ball," or "dust kitten" but no magical powder sense.

Did we discuss "foo-foo dust" (or a variant) earlier?

dInIs



>GOOPHER FEATHERS
>
>    The RHHDAS has no entry.
>    "Horsefeathers" is in the RHHDAS from 1927, coined by T. A. Dorgan.
>    From the NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE, 2 August 1949, pg. 12, col. 2:
>
>_George Moran,_
>_Of "Two Black_
>_Crows", Is Dead_
>-----------------
>_Dies at 67 in Charity Ward;_
>    _Late Charles Mack His_
>    _Partner in Blackface Act_
>(...)
>    _Comedian in 1920s_
>    George Moran, with the late Charles E. Mack, was one of the men
>who set the American cultural pattern of the 1920s.  Founded on
>sure-fire gags, delivered with a dead-pan drawl and expert timing,
>their black-face routine brought them to the top in vaudeville and
>musical comedy; sold 7,000,000 phonograph records in homes across
>the country and blossomed briefly on radio.
>    In the process, they made "goopher feathers"--defined by Mack as
>"the fuzz offa peaches"--a by-word for nonsense, and launched a
>string of anecdotes that remain as echoes of the '30s.  Many, like
>the "goopher feathers"--were derived from an experiment in farming
>that was an inexhaustible subject of Moran and Mack routines.
>
>(I'll check them out when the Performing Arts Library re-opens,
>around October 15--ed.)
>
>--------------------------------------------------------
>CALL THE SHOTS
>
>    RHHDAS A-G "call" says to check "shot."  Thanks.
>    OED has 1967.
>    From the NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE, full page ad for PATHFINDER
>news magazine (TIME & NEWSWEEK competitor), 12 October 1949, pg. 33:
>
>WHO DO YOU GET TO
>"CALL YOUR SHOTS?"
>(...)
>These Are Some of the Men Who
>"Call the Shots" in Sturgis, Mich.
>
>--------------------------------------------------------
>"YOU'RE ANOTHER!"
>
>    From a cartoon in the NYHT, 28 August 1949, section 2, pg. 7, col. 1.
>    "You're Another!" is the caption.
>    Kettle "TITO" argues with Pot "STALIN."
>
>--------------------------------------------------------
>BUSH PILOT
>
>    OED has 1936.
>    From the NYHT, 22 June 1949, pg. 18, col. 2:
>
>_Joe Crosson,_
>_Famed Alaskan_
>_Pilot, Is Dead_
>---------------
>_Helped Curb Epidemics in_
>    _'30s; Flew Will Rogers,_
>    _Wiley Post Back to U.S._
>(...)(Col. 3--ed.)
>    An Army pilot in World War I, he left California for Alaska in
>1926 for the lure of pioneering in Alaskan aviation.  He was one of
>the first and most famous of the "bush pilots."  He flew for a
>thousand miles in every direction from Fairbanks.
>
>--------------------------------------------------------
>SCRATCH SHEET
>
>    OED has his name, but cites the date as 1917.
>    From the NYHT, 8 August 1949, pg. 16, col. 5:
>
>_William Armstrong,_
>_Racing Publisher_
>------------------
>_Bowery News Dealer Printed_
>    _First "Scratch Sheet"_
>(...)  By 1916 he had a stand on the Bowery and conceived the idea
>of issuing his own racing information bulletin which would give
>last-minute information on the racing day.  From this beginning he
>developed a large publishing enterprise specializing in information
>about horses withdrawn from competition on the morning of a race,
>handicappers' choices and other racing data.
>
>(A court case is described that decided that "scratch sheets" were
>not "tipster sheets"--ed.)
>
>--------------------------------------------------------
>BASEBALL UMPIRE PHRASES
>
>    From the NYHT, 15 June 1949, pg. 20, col. 2:
>
>_"Uncle Charlie" Moran, Umpire_
>_And Football Coach, Dies at 70_
>(...)(Col. 3--ed.)
>    As a baseball umpire, Mr. Moran was noted for his rasping voice,
>especially when a decision was disputed, and for his passion for
>anonymity.  He shunned public attention.
>    "The public never notices you until it thinks you've called one
>wrong," he used to say.
>    His most famous standby expression was, "It ain't nothing until I call it."
>
>--------------------------------------------------------
>GOING TO CAIN'S
>
>    From the NYHT, 14 May 1949, pg. 12, col. 4:
>
>_P. J. Cain Dies;_
>_Ran Theatrical_
>_Storage House_
>-----------------
>_Warehouse Became Famous_
>    _on Broadway as "Journey's_
>    _End" for Show Failures_
>(...)
>    Even when some other moving and storage company got the business,
>the closing production was known as "going to Cain's."  As
>attendance began to flag, actors used a wisecrack that became a
>tradition: "Next week we're going to Cain's."  A critic once wrote
>of a poor show: "The audience was so bored you could hear Cain's
>trucks carting the show away as each act ended."
>
>--------------------------------------------------------
>WHEN AN IRRESISTIBLE FORCE MEETS AN IMMOVABLE OBJECT
>
>"When an irresistable force such as you
>Meets an old immovable object like me
>You can bet as sure as you live
>Something's gotta give, Something's gotta give,
>Something's gotta give."
>--Johnny Mercer song "Something's Gotta Give," 1957
>
>    From the NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE, 8 November 1949, pg. 24, cols.
>5-7 cartoon:
>
>Now Comes the Immovable Object
>
>(The candidates are using a lever to move voter apathy--ed.)
>
>--------------------------------------------------------
>BASEBALL MIDGET (OFF TOPIC)
>
>    Has the information below been recorded?
>    I recently read an article about Bill Veeck and the midget Eddie
>Gaedel.  Veeck sent Gaedel to the plate in 1951.
>    From the NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE, 8 August 1949, pg. 17, col. 3:
>
>    _Bill Veeck and the Midget_
>ACCORDING TO Ted Lyons, Red Rolfe's first lieutenant on the Tigers,
>the possibility of a midget in major league baseball is not as
>ridiculous as it sounds..."For example," says Lyons, "if the
>Cleveland Indians had a bases loaded situation, two outs, and one
>run needed to win the pennant, I wouldn't be surprised to see Bill
>Veeck come up with a midget on his squad for the express purpose of
>stepping to the plate and working the pitcher for a base on balls."
>
>--------------------------------------------------------
>BIG BANG
>
>    I'll end with a bang.  Fred Hoyle, who died recently, coined his
>"Big Bang" theory in 1950.
>    From the NYHT, "Matter of Fact" by Joseph and Stewart Alsop, 3
>October 1949, pg. 13, cols. 7-8:
>
>    _Politics of a Big Bang_

--
Dennis R. Preston
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston at pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736