"little joe from kokomo" and "african billiards"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Thanx, Wilson.

So the line from that WWII movie - "Waddaya gonna do, bust me to civilian?" - was meant *ironically*.

JL

Wilson Gray <wilson.gray at RCN.COM> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: "little joe from kokomo" and "african billiards"
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It's an old, in-group slang term used among interpreters and
translators - Monterey Marys; "Monterey [CA]" for the location of the
Army Language School and "Marys" because we were traditionally assumed
to be gay - in the now-defunct U.S. Army Security Agency. It's
ultimately based on "pulling one's leg," wherein "buns" is understood
to refer to the buttocks, these being located at the tops of the legs.
As for "pulling one's buns" as opposed to "... bun" parallel to "leg,"
who knows? It may have been influenced by the older A.S.A. tradition of
nicknaming a guy with a protruding arse "Buns" or "Bunsy."

OT, but, WRT to gays in the military, in those days, there were clearly
many, especially in the A.S.A. - there was one guy so far out of the
closet that he was known among the troops as "The Purse." And, after he
finished his term of enlistment, he was hired by the Army Security
Agency as a civilian consultant. He was well-liked among the troops
because he would take EM to eat in the Officer's Mess and to drink in
the Officers' Club, thereby pissing off the brass. (Probably this has
never occurred to any of you civilians, but, strictly speaking, any
civilian outranks the highest-ranking officer in the military.)

Anyway, before I write the great American novel, my point is that forty
years ago, being gay in the military wasn't the big thing that it is,
nowadays, not even in units, like the Army Security Agency, that
required top-secret/crypto clearance - in those days, the highest
level.

Another thing that struck me was the dearth of Jews in the A.S.A. I
wadn expectin' to fin' no whole lot of bruthuhs and I didn't. But, in a
brains-not-brawn unit of over 200 head of EM, you don't expect the
number of Jews, 5, to be barely twice the number of blacks, 2.

-Wilson

On Jul 14, 2005, at 5:08 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
> Subject: Re: "little joe from kokomo" and "african billiards"
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> "Pulling your *buns* " ??????????
>
> Wotin'ell ???????
>
> JL
>
> Wilson Gray wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Wilson Gray
> Subject: Re: "little joe from kokomo" and "african billiards"
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> On Jul 14, 2005, at 10:36 AM, Mullins, Bill wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: "Mullins, Bill"
>> Subject: Re: "little joe from kokomo" and "african billiards"
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> -
>> --------
>>
>> One of the many little things I have learned while going
>> through newspapers of the last hundred and fifty years is
>> how creative man can be in coming up with ways to insult.
>>
>> I don't mean in the least to imply that race relations in this
>> country are perfect, but periodicals of even fifty years ago
>> would print, with no sense of irony or shame at all, stuff that
>> would get them into serious trouble today.
>>
>>
>>> Okay. I've long been familiar with " ,,, dominoes" from
>>> literature, but " ... billiards" I've neither read nor heard
>>> before today. Given that actual dominoes is an *extremely*
>>> popular game amongst the colored, I can assume only that
>>> "African ... " term must have been thought up by some member
>>> of the other group with nothing better to do than to heap
>>> further opprobrium onto the backs of the members of an
>>> already much-maligned minority. ;-)
>>>
>>> -Wilson
>>
>
> I'm just pulling your buns, Bill! That''s why I added the emoticon. I
> read the part of the intro to this listserv that warned that it may not
> be the board for people who wear their sensitivities on their sleeves.
>
> -Wilson
>
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