"opening the kimono" (1979?, 1984)

Tue Jun 21 14:55:21 UTC 2005

You're probably right about the humorously allusive origin of "poppa-stoppa" (from the M-word) but remember - us white folks usually ain't hip to what's really goin' down.  Bear with us.

In related news, a friend of mine heard "poppa-stoppa" used forty years ago in Arkansas as a jocular word for a condom. Makes sense, but only one or two Usenet hits turn up, appied to any birth-control device.

Hmmm. Now I'm wondering if "condom" mightn't have been the *original* meaning, say in the '30s. Once it was circulating, it would be easy to use it as a jokey form of "motherfucker."

 One never knows.

JL

Wilson Gray <wilson.gray at RCN.COM> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: "opening the kimono" (1979?, 1984)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DJ's used it?! This may be crying Wol(o)f, but I've long been under the
impression that "poppa-stoppa" was a kind of punning pseudo-euphemism
for "mutha-fukka," inspired by a traditional joke - told and re-told by
generations of little boys, each passing it along under the impression
that they are the first to have heard it - whose punch line is, "That
woddn no 'whoppa!' That was my asshole-stoppa!"

WRT "okey-dokey," I do recall that Richard Pryor used it in his "Black
Ben the blacksmith" bit in the 'Seventies.

-Wilson

On Jun 21, 2005, at 8:06 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
> Subject: Re: "opening the kimono" (1979?, 1984)
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> Google can direct you to over 100,000 current sites that are proud
> users of the word "okey-dokey."
>
> "Poppa-stoppa" doesn't come close, but there was a series of beloved
> New Orleans DJs in the '60s who went by that name. The word was in
> print by '46.
>
> Keep buzzin', cousin.
>
> JL
>
> Wilson Gray wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Wilson Gray
> Subject: Re: "opening the kimono" (1979?, 1984)
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> On Jun 20, 2005, at 5:37 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
>> Subject: Re: "opening the kimono" (1979?, 1984)
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> -
>> --------
>>
>> 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 wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: Wilson Gray
>> Subject: Re: "opening the kimono" (1979?, 1984)
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> -
>> --------
>>
>> On Jun 20, 2005, at 7:05 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> -----------------------
>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
>>> Subject: Re: "opening the kimono" (1979?, 1984)
>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> -
>>> -
>>> --------
>>>
>>> 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:
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> -----------------------
>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>> Poster: Victoria Neufeldt
>>> Subject: Re: "opening the kimono" (1979?, 1984)
>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> -
>>> -
>>> --------
>>>
>>> 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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