"skunked" and "dirty katie"

[Laurence Horn]

At 3:47 PM -0500 3/7/02, John Blower wrote:
>At 09:06 AM 3/7/02 -0500, you wrote:
>>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.
>
>In Britain in the 1960s, we called the Queen of Spades "Black Maria", which
>was also what we called the game of Hearts.
>
Is that pronounced "Black Mariah" as in ____ Carey, as opposed to the
usual "Maria" as in Callas?  I sort of remember that too as an
alternant.   (Played:  Los Angeles, mid 1960's.)

larry