Slang from "a returned gob" (1919)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Tue, 23 Aug 2005 03:35:12 -0400, Benjamin Zimmer
<bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU> wrote:

>Found this looking for early cites for "pogey/pogy/poggy bait"...
>
>-----
>Lima News (Ohio), June 5, 1919, p. 6/3
>
>SUCH IS LIFE
>
>Another college professor has gone and started another campaign against
>slang.
>I'll say he'll have a peach of a time getting anywhere with his campaign.
>BECAUSE--
>(1) We've got all the slang we had before the war.
>(2) More new slang was invented in camps and on ships.
>(3) Everybody learned everybody else's own pet slang.
>Why, just the other minute a returned gob was talking.
>And spilled more slang in six seconds than a college professor could
>analyze in a dozen years.
[...]

An article on Navy slang in the _Trenton (NJ) Evening Times_ of Apr 30,
1920 repeats much of the same material but attributes it to _The Navy
Explained_ by Logan E. Ruggles. This book also happens to be the source
for the OED's 1918 cite for "poggy bait" and various other items (e.g.,
"sand" for sugar). So I think we can assume that the "returned gob" was a
fictional device used by the writer to avoid saying he got the slang from
a book.


--Ben Zimmer