"opening the kimono" (1979?, 1984)

Tue Jun 21 05:45:09 UTC 2005

On Jun 20, 2005, at 5:37 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "opening the kimono" (1979?, 1984)
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> Right back at you, poppa-stoppa !

Do what?! When I was a little kid, ca.1940, in Texas, I used to hear my
mother and her friends use "poppa-stoppa." They had no idea of the
origin of the term, of course. Next thing I know, someone will be
saying, "okey-doke(y)"! At one time, that was so popular that there was
a comic strip named "Sir Oakey Doakes." It parodied the days of knights
and featured the catch phrase, "Odds bodkin!"

-Wilson

>   If I'm lyin', I'm dyin' !!
>
> JL
>
> Wilson Gray <wilson.gray at RCN.COM> wrote:
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> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Wilson Gray
> Subject: Re: "opening the kimono" (1979?, 1984)
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>
> On Jun 20, 2005, at 7:05 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
>>
>>
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>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
>> Subject: Re: "opening the kimono" (1979?, 1984)
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>> -
>> --------
>>
>> Making allowances for regional phonology, that's the usual
>> pronunciation, isn't it?
>>
>> I've rarely heard anything other than / kI 'mo n@ /.
>>
>> JL
>>
>
> I got your back, Jon (accompanied by imaginary reciprocal giving of
> skin).
>
> -Wilson
>
>> Victoria Neufeldt wrote:
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>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: Victoria Neufeldt
>> Subject: Re: "opening the kimono" (1979?, 1984)
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>> -
>> --------
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>> On Sunday, June 19, 2005 9:51 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote:
>>>
>>> I have exactly the same memory, of the robe and the
>>> pronunciation, as
>>> Vicki! My Midwestern mother used it, so it goes back a
>>> ways, to the '20s
>>> or '30s, I'd guess.
>>
>> Wow! You mean my family may have been normal after all?
>>
>> Vicki
>>
>>>
>>> At 11:46 PM 6/19/2005, you wrote:
>>>> Doug Wilson made a good point about the use of the term 'kimono'.
>>>> That's what we used to use for 'housecoat', pronounced
>>> something like
>>>> (k@ mo' n@) with "long o" in the stressed syllable and the
>>> last vowel
>>>> not really a '@', but almost an 'a' as in 'far'. I knew
>>> the word as a
>>>> kid in western Canada, long before I ever saw it in print. When I
>>>> first saw it, I was very surprised by the spelling and
>>> henceforth felt
>>>> self-conscious about saying it. As Doug suggests, as far as I can
>>>> remember, we did not think of that article of clothing or
>>> the name in
>>>> relation to the Japanese robe at all. I think the
>>> reference was to a
>>>> woman's/girl's robe, not a man's.
>>>>
>>>> Incidentally, I don't recall ever encountering the expression "open
>>>> the kimono" before reading about it on this list.
>>>>
>>>> Victoria
>>>>
>>>> Victoria Neufeldt
>>>> 727 9th Street East
>>>> Saskatoon, Sask.
>>>> S7H 0M6
>>>> Canada
>>>> Tel: 306-955-8910
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Saturday, June 18, 2005 8:19 PM, Doug Wilson wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> It is not necessarily obvious IMHO that there was any
>>>>> Japanese reference
>>>>> at all in the original metaphor. The word "kimono" was used like
>>>>> "housecoat" or "dressing-gown" a few decades ago (maybe
>>>>> some people still
>>>>> use it so?); I suppose people who gave the matter any
>>>>> thought knew that
>>>>> the word came from Japan, but a reference to a US woman
>>>>> lounging around in
>>>>> a kimono might not have had much (if any) reference to
>>> Japan (as an
>>>>> inexact analogy, probably few native Anglophones think of
>>>>> India when they
>>>>> think of pajamas). "Open the kimono" might have had a
>>>>> non-ethnic sense
>>>>> like "open the bathrobe" originally, especially if it dates
>>>>> from before WW
>>>>> II. Still it would probably have referred to a woman, I
>>>>> think, although
>>>>> perhaps not entirely exclusively.
>>>>>
>>>>> The quotation from the fox-and-badger article is a little
>>>>> peculiar since I
>>>>> would expect something like "open his or her clothing"
>>>>> rather than "open
>>>>> the kimono" in English text. Two possibilities (among
>>>>> others): (1) "open
>>>>> the kimono" was already a fixed expression in English
>>>>> meaning "expose
>>>>> oneself" or so; [or] (2) this was translated more-or-less
>>>>> word-for-word
>>>>> from some Japanese conventional expression with similar
>>>>> meaning (with
>>>>> "the" arbitrarily added in translation) (in this case the
>>>>> same Japanese
>>>>> expression might have been translated again independently
>>>>> for the modern
>>>>> metaphor).
>>>>>
>>>>> -- Doug Wilson
>>>>>
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