Teen Lingo site

[Laurence Horn]

At 8:49 PM -0500 2/17/05, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>From the Teen Lingo site found by Patti Kurtz:
>
>beast
>    n. Someone who dominates on the basketball court.

For a while in the 80's, the expression "Beast of the East" was used
in a college basketball context to pick out whichever team was
dominant at a given time, in particular Georgetown of the Patrick
Ewing era ('81-'85).    Wonder if this relates to the above.

>Back in the late '50's in Los Angeles, "beast" was used by black male
>college students to mean "girl friend." I assume that this application
>was extracted from the saying, "[NP] not fit for man or beast"/"[NP]
>fit for neither man nor beast."

Hmmm.  As in the W. C. Fields line?  But that was about the
weather--"It ain't a fit night out for man nor beast" (please
correct, Fred)

larry