(strictly) vonce

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Fri, 22 Jul 2005 11:51:44 -0500, Mullins, Bill
<Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL> wrote:

>"Maestro Predicts New Movement to Pale 'Bob'" by Lionel Hampton
>The Afro American
>Tuesday, December 25, 1951 p. 6 col 3.
>"A pretty girl is known as "Hollywood Eyes," her lips as "chops," and
>you make love to her by "doin' the vonce vonce."

Another cite for the sexual usage:

-----
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/019514046X/
_Louis Armstrong, in His Own Words_ (1999), p. 143
"Early Years with Lucille" (ca. 1970)
Like we first met and Checking in a lot of Hotels with those _Twin_ Beds,
_my my_ how Lucille + I suffered every time that we did the Vonce (sex)
you know?
-----

According to this article, Armstrong's use of "vonce" is based on "the
Yiddish term for cockroach":

http://www.spiritualityhealth.com/newsh/items/article/item_144.html

I believe the writer is referring to "vantz", Yiddish for 'bedbug' (German
is "wanze"). I know that jazz musicians have borrowed some Yiddish terms
(e.g., "schmaltz"), but it doesn't seem plausible that "doing the vonce"
means "doing the bedbug". The "bedbug" derivation doesn't really work for
the other senses of "vonce" either. (But who knows? Maybe Lester Young
heard a Yiddish speaker calling a mischievous kid a "vantz" and he just
liked the sound of it!)


--Ben Zimmer