slang list

[Baker, John]

        Note that these have different characteristics.  "Halitosis" and
"B.O." were coined names for recognized problems that already had names
("bad breath" and "body odor," respectively).  The new, euphemistic name
made the problem less of a social stigma, allowing the consumer to
safely buy a product to combat it.  "Athlete's foot" (instead of "foot
fungus") is in this category too.

        "Ring around the collar" and "tattle-tale gray," on the other
hand, were coined terms to address a phenomenon that previously had
barely even been perceived and did not have its own name:  that clothes
washed in laundry soap did not get as white as clothes washed in modern
detergents.

John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Laurence Horn
Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2005 2:44 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: slang list

>There were a lot of these anxiety-producing expressions in ad writing
>in those days:
>"Halitosis" (Listerine)
>"B.O." (Lifebuoy)
>"Tattle-tale Gray" (Fels Naptha soap)
>"Pink Toothbrush" (Can't remember who promoted this worry) There was
>some shaming term for dandruff which I have forgotten, promoted by
>Fitch's Shampoo.

And let's not forget "Ring around the collar", an insidious and
generally fatal disorder, curable only by I forget which product.

>Not that the technique began or ended there, but these I remember as
>being more or less contemporaneous with "gaposis."
>
>A. Murie
>
>~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>