"opening the kimono" (1979?, 1984)

[Jonathan Lighter]

Mais oui !

JL

Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Benjamin Zimmer
Subject: Re: "opening the kimono" (1979?, 1984)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 09:35:22 -0400, Wilson Gray wrote:
>On Jun 21, 2005, at 8:06 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>
>> "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.
>
>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!"

I assume {mammy/mamma/mama}-{jammer/jammy/jamma} is in the same family of
jocular euphemisms?


--Ben Zimmer

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