Teen Lingo site

[Wilson Gray]

You're familiar with the supposed Chinese curse, "May you live in
interesting times!" no doubt. I once lived an interesting life. As the
guy said after stripping himself naked and then leaping into a cactus
patch, "It seemed like a good idea, at the time." Oh, well. Old too
soon; smart too late.

-Wilson

On Feb 1, 2005, at 7:24 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Teen Lingo site
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> Wilson, you are a veritable gold mine of seedy information. I am
> always in awe of your
> word whored - I mean "hoard."
>
> By my students' standards, Jon Stewart *is* a senior citizen. Where
> that leaves us, I just don't want to think about.
>
> JL
>
>
>
> Wilson Gray <wilson.gray at RCN.COM> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Wilson Gray
> Subject: Re: Teen Lingo site
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> On Feb 1, 2005, at 1:58 PM, Baker, John wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: "Baker, John"
>> Subject: Re: Teen Lingo site
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> -
>> --------
>>
>> The earliest I see on Westlaw is the Seattle-Times, 6/22/1986,
>> where it's a reference to Bo Jackson. But Westlaw poops out around
>> that time, so the absence of earlier cites there is not significant.
>> I've always heard this as referring to Frank Sinatra, and indeed there
>> is a 9/16/1987 use in the Boston Globe to refer to Sinatra.
>>
>> It's got to go back farther than this. What surprised me was
>> the vast range of people to whom it can refer.
>>
>> John Baker
>
>
>> "It's got to go back farther than this."
>
> You mean, WRT a citation in print? (BTW, congratulations on your use of
> "farther" in this environment.) I first heard a very similar phrase in
> 1954 - the year that I graduated from high school and I have no reason
> to think that the first person that I heard say it also coined it.
>
> A couple of weeks back, I heard Jon Stewart use the phrase, "Get your
> heels to clicking." ("Get to stepping" was an occasional variant.) Not
> only was this the first time that I'd ever a white person use this, but
> it was also the first time that I'd heard it said since the mid-'60's
> in L.A. and the first time that I'd heard it used by a "square," in
> this case, someone who wasn't a pimp. Rarely - any whore who'd been
> broken in and turned out for a week or so would know better than to do
> anything that would cause her pimp to have to take her to task - a pimp
> might use this phrase to enjoin his whores to work harder, not smarter,
> when he was, e.g. gambling away "his" money faster than his whores
> could bring it in.
>
> The phrase's meaning and use were so restricted back in the day that
> I'm stunned and amazed that any non-senior citizen at all living in the
> 21st century could possibly have even heard it, let alone find a reason
> to use it.
>
> -Wilson Gray
>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On
>> Behalf
>> Of Laurence Horn
>> Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2005 9:14 AM
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Subject: Re: Teen Lingo site
>>
>>
>> At 12:11 AM -0500 2/1/05, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>> Another first: on a sitcom, I heard a white character
>>> say: "It's your world. I'm just living in it."
>>
>> This has been big on ESPN's SportsCenter for a while. A highlight
>> of, say, a basketball player X making a great move is shown and the
>> anchor says "It's X's world; we're just living in it." At least
>> since the late 90's. Maybe first with Michael Jordan? Can you help
>> narrow it down, Alice?
>>
>> larry
>>
>
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