Speaking of "gay," etc.

[Jonathan Lighter]

Never heard "dookie" (any sense) in NY. FWIW = 0.

"Howdy doody!" was orig. a joc. greeting. (Elaborating "Howdy do!") Saw it not too far back in an ancient Sat. Eve. Post.  Should've wrote it down but didn't.

JL

Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Laurence Horn
Subject: Re: Speaking of "gay," etc.
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At 3:00 PM -0400 9/22/04, Wilson Gray wrote:
>
>On the other hand, HDAS does have "dookie" and DARE doesn't. Until very
>recently, when I heard it used by adults on the Jerry Springer show, I
>thought that dookie was a children's "bad word" used only in East
>Texas. Needless to say, I was surprised to see it in HDAS. Either the
>word has spread far and wide since the '40's or my never having heard
>the word used outside of East Texas until a couple of years ago was a
>complete accident.
>

and at 12:13 PM -0700 9/22/04, Benjamin J Barrett wrote:
>Dookie as in poop? I remember that meaning in the suburbs of Seattle in
>the 70s, or maybe it was Anchorage...

to which Wilson averred that that was indeed the meaning he had in mind.

I think we may have had a thread on our personal recollections of
childhood euphemisms for body-parts and processes a while back. In
our family (NYC, far from East Texas), "dookies" were penises. I
still cringe when I hear it applied (as it often is in basketball
contexts by, if you'll pardon the expression, Dick Vitale) to
characterize our (ADS-based) homies from Duke University. 'Poop',
on the other hand, was referenced as "duty" (homophonous with Howdy
Doody's last name, as was risible at the time).

Larry


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