"Match me, Sidney"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Fri, 8 Jul 2005 20:48:39 -0400, Benjamin Zimmer
<bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU> wrote:

>"Match me, Sidney" is a classic line from _The Sweet Smell of Success_
>(1957), delivered by J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster) to Sidney Falco
>(Tony Curtis). It was one of the American Film Institute's 400 nominees
>for the greatest movie quotes of all time, but sadly it did not make the
>top 100.
>
>I don't see "match" = 'light a cigarette for (someone)' in OED, HDAS, or
>anywhere else. Was this a turn of phrase that the screenwriters (Clifford
>Odets and Ernest Lehman) came up with specifically for the movie?

Never mind-- I should have checked AmSp first...

-----
"Smokers' Slang" by Robert H. Weber
_American Speech_, Oct. 1940, p. 336/1
You may light your cigarette with _a light_, _some fire_, _a touch_, _a
flick_, or _a bonfire_; or you may ask somebody to 'Match me.'
-----


--Ben Zimmer