"skunked" and "dirty katie"

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:16 PM -0500 3/6/02, Alice Faber wrote:
>Mark A Mandel said:
>>On Wed, 6 Mar 2002, Clark Whelton wrote:
>>
>>#Last summer in Maine, while playing the card game "hearts," two of the
>>#players referred to being hit with the queen of spades as being "skunked."
>>#This was a first for me.  I've always heard the queen of spades called
>>#"dirty katie," a term unknown to these players.  Is "dirty katie" fading
>>#away?
>>
>>Oh, that takes me way back! I remember the queen of spades in Hearts as
>>"the Black Bitch" (I think) and "Dirty Dora" (I feel more sure of).
>
>I remember "the Black Bitch" but not "Dirty Dora".
>--
I recall it as "the Bitch" simpliciter.  I'm not sure whether we were
more comfortable being sexist than racist, or whether the feeling was
that since the Queen of Clubs was equally black but entirely
non-bitchy, it wasn't really the color that was to blame.

Larry