hotbox

[Jonathan Lighter]

I'm unfamiliar with any of these senses of "hotbox."

JL

Jonathon Green <slang at ABECEDARY.NET> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Jonathon Green
Subject: hotbox
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There is also the use of 'hotbox' in the sense of drawing deeply on a
cigarette. Jon Lighter doesn't have it, so I assume it is not in common
use. (I may, on the other hand, simply be revealing my ignorance of US
smoking mores). Thus

1998 (context 1986) George Pelecanos _Sweet Forever_ 277: He hotboxed
his cigarette and stabbed it savagely into the ashtray.

However I have no cites for this other than in a couple of Pelecanos
books, so it may be his own (mis)reading of the more usual use. In fact
there _ is_ a reference in an Eminem lyric, but it's so opaque - 'Your
little lungs is too small to hotbox with God' - that it could refer to
closed cars, deep drags, or possibly something quite other.

JG.


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