Jeet Jet (1950s and 1958)

[Laurence Horn]

At 8:40 AM -0600 1/27/03, Gerald Cohen wrote:
>I don't know the date of Woody Allen's "Manhattan" movie, but I
>distinctly remember saying "Jeet? No, Jew?" as a mild bit of humor to
>my sister when we were still living in NYC.  I moved from NYC to
>Missouri in 1968, and my sister had left a few years earlier. I
>wasn't being creative in this mild bit of humor, but merely repeating
>something I had recently come across in print--most likely in some
>general treatment about language. It certainly wasn't in a Woody
>Allen movie.
>
>
>Gerald Cohen

My claim was not that Woody Allen invented the exchange, which is
simply a recognition of the common occurrrence of palatalization in
fast speech.  What he invented, in "Manhattan" or "Play It Again,
Sam" [the latter a nice example of an unappreciated genre, Movie
Titles Based on Movie Misquotes], was the riff off the (mock-)claim
that the "No Jew" part represents anti-Semitism.

larry

>
>>At 2:34 PM -0600 1/26/03, Millie Webb wrote:
>>I think it was in his (Woody Allen's) "Manhattan" movie.  He was complaining
>>about anti-Semitism everywhere, to his lawyer.  I believe he gave the
>>example of a conversation overheard at his health club, where he heard one
>>guy ask the other, "Didja eat yet?", and the guy replied, "No, Jew".  I have
>>not seen that movie for a long time, and it was already kind of old when I
>>first saw it over ten years ago.  -- Millie