hang-up

[Grant Barrett]

I did an entry for that one yesterday. I was glad to come across the
Times use because I already had two "hang-up = suicide" in the database
and didn't feel like they were quite enough. The earliest use I found
was a 26 Mar. 1982 article titled "Jargon of Correction Officers" in
the Times. No doubt Barry will antedate it. The other cite came from a
Newsday datelined Queens, so the term could be NYC-specific.

http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/hang_up/

Grant Barrett
gbarrett at worldnewyork.org

On Mar 2, 2005, at 13:30, George Thompson wrote:
>> From an article in the NY Times of February 28, 2005, on suicide among
> the prisoners on Riker's Island:
> Suicides -- "hang-ups" in the cold vernacular of the cell block -- have
> always been a jailhouse reality.
>
> The article began on p. 1 or the A section, and the continuation filled
> two pages of the Metro (B) section.  The quotation is from page B6,
> col. 1