Teen Lingo site

[Jonathan Lighter]

Yup. "ain't just a-bird-turdin'" goes back to WWII. But I don't think anybody's noted the "Your world" phrases before.

JL

Wilson Gray <wilson.gray at RCN.COM> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: Teen Lingo site
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't think that I've ever heard that one, but I was never down with
"wolf/woof" from the BE-gin-nin. When I was in the Army, "You ain't
just a-bird-turdin'!" was used with that meaning by Southern-white
GI's. Pretty cool, considering the source.

BTW, on a reality show, I heard a black woman say, "That sucks!" A
first for me. Another first: on a sitcom, I heard a white character
say: "It's your world. I'm just living in it." Back in '54, we used to
say: "It's your world. Just let me live," in response to the greeting,
"Whassapnin?," the "Whussup" of the '50's through the '90's.

-Wilson Gray

On Jan 31, 2005, at 11:27 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
> Subject: Re: Teen Lingo site
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> There was also, "You ain't just a woofin'!" I.e., "not just whistlin'
> Dixie!"
>
> JL
>
> Wilson Gray wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Wilson Gray
> Subject: Re: Teen Lingo site
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> Back in the day - mid '60's - when this was a relatively (I never
> really dug this expression) active part of my vocabulary, it meant
> roughly "to make an empty threat designed to frighten away the unhip."
> It's easy to see how this could come to mean to bullshit someone.
>
> BTW, by this time, in L.A., at least, "square" had ceased to be a word
> applied to the unhip in general. Rather, it was applied to those unhip
> to whatever the speaker was hip to. Those in the (sporting) life
> referred to all others in the demimonde as "squares." Dealers referred
> to users as squares. Dopers referred to winos as squares. Winos
> referred to dopers as squares.
>
> The hip may recall Richard Pryor's bit in which a wino downs a doper by
> saying him, "That narcotic done rendered your ass null and void." (It
> helps if you're old enough to remember: "Do not fold, spindle, or
> mutilate! Any such action will render this instrument null and void."
> Or words to that effect.)
>
> -Wilson Gray
>
>
> On Jan 31, 2005, at 7:35 PM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: "Douglas G. Wilson"
>> Subject: Re: Teen Lingo site
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> -
>> --------
>>
>>> So the big question is where to put the cross reference. I guess it
>>> should be at "woof" and all cites at "wolf" - even though most of the
>>> published ones will be spelled "woof."
>>
>> Why would the published ones be spelled "woof"? I never saw it spelled
>> that
>> way in a book AFAIK.
>>
>> Google shows "wolf ticket" outnumbering "woof ticket" on the Web.
>>
>> N'archive shows > 100 examples with "wolf", zero with "woof".
>>
>> What I want to know is whether the expression has a fixed definite
>> meaning,
>> or group of meanings. I can't find it in my dictionaries at a glance,
>> and I
>> don't trust "Urbandictionary" et al. I've taken it to mean
>> "falsehood"/"bullshit" but in some cases I couldn't tell.
>>
>> -- Doug Wilson
>>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Search presents - Jib Jab's 'Second Term'
>


---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
 Yahoo! Search presents - Jib Jab's 'Second Term'