"Laying giggy"

[George Thompson]

I wrote a day or so ago:
> A letter appeared in this morning's (Thursday's) Daily News asking
> for "where and how certain expressions started" that the writer, "an
> old geezer" from the Red Hook area of Brooklyn, remembers.
One of the phrases was "laying giggy," which Jess Sheidlower responded
to.  The other was "cheese it!", which is in HDAS.

The Daily News received at least three responses to this letter: mine,
which cited HDAS, and two others.  Guess which two got printed.   (My
relatives, employees of the News and Barry Popik are ineligble for this
contest.)

Stanley Block of the Bronx said: "When immigrants who spoke no English
listened to English-speaking gamblers, they'd repeat, to the best of
their abilities, what they thought was being said.  So when a police
car rounded the corner and a lookout cried, 'Jesus, it's the cops.' to
the immigrants it sounded like, 'Cheese it, the cops.'"
Brian D. McNerney of Brooklyn offered: "'Cheese it' comes from
photographers who would tell their subjects 'Say "cheese"'.  Thus the
expression 'Cheese it -- the cops!' means 'Smile and appear innocent.'"

I like Brian's version, myself.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African
Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998.