"little joe from kokomo" and "african billiards"

[Wilson Gray]

On Jul 15, 2005, at 7:50 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "little joe from kokomo" and "african billiards"
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> Thanx, Wilson.
>
> So the line from that WWII movie - "Waddaya gonna do, bust me to
> civilian?" - was meant *ironically*.
>
> JL
>

Yeah. If the guy became a civilian, there'd be nothing further that the
Army could do to him, beyond escorting him off the grounds of the
military reservation. The enlisted grades have been renamed since WWII
and again since my day, but nobody would or could be busted below the
grade equivalent to "recruit E[nlisted grade] 1."

You may know this already, but, in the Army, EM have "grades." Only
officers have "rank." And the "guardhouse" is where those on guard duty
hang out when not actually standing or walking their posts. The
jail/prison is called the "stockade." This is also a verb. Fartsacks
that aren't supposed to be made up - it's sheet-change day or the
company commander simply chooses not to allow bunks to be made up, just
to make the military life suck even more - have to be "stockaded." If
anybody really wants to know, I'll be happy to describe how to stockade
a bunk.

-Wilson

> 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"
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> 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
>>
>> __________________________________________________
>> Do You Yahoo!?
>> Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
>> http://mail.yahoo.com
>>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
>  Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page
>