Making Whoopee

[A. Maberry]

Actually it was Katherine Hepburn in On Golden Pond. However she and Bette
Davis were about the same age and both from New England -- Hepburn born in
1907 in Hartford, Conn, and Davis in 1908 in Lowell, Mass.

allen
maberry at u.washington.edu


On Wed, 20 Mar 2002, Dave Wilton wrote:

> I associate it with the TV game show "The Newlywed Game." That's the stock
> phrase they used to get by the '60s/'70s-era Standards and Practices
> Departments. It's old-fashioned, but not quite Bette Davis old.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
> Of Joanne M. Despres
> Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2002 2:12 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Making Whoopee
>
>
> The "behaving amorously" sense was the only one familiar to me,
> for what it's worth.  I checked some recent M-W citations (from the
> past 20 years or so) and found only three uses of the expression,
> all of them carrying the sexual connotation.
>
> I suppose it does strike me as a bit old-fashioned.  I associate its
> use with people like the elderly Bette Davis, whose character used
> the phrase in "On Golden Pond."
>
> Joanne Despres
> Merriam-Webster
>