Sdewalks of New York

[Jonathan Lighter]

I heard another distinguished historian on TV a week or so ago explain that "OK" comes from "Old Kinderhook."

I guess they hear the story in college and never bother to question it.  I mean, those *are* the initials, right?

JL

George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: George Thompson
Subject: Sdewalks of New York
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There has been a great throwing about of brains on the NYHIST-L lately,
prompted by the following question.

In the song, "East Side, West Side" there is a phrase in the 3rd
verse: "Things have changed since those times, some are up in "G"
Others they are wand'rers but they all feel just like me" What
does "some are up in 'G'" refer to?

Pat Cunningham responded with a useful history of the song, and an
interesting variant reading, followed by some speculative philology:
"Things have changed since those times, some are up in “G” Others they
are wand’rers but they all feel just like me "... is one version of
the context of the up in "G" but another says "Some are up in "G", some
are on the hog," which I believe would be a good thing such as "in
clover" would be. Therefore they ones who are up in G could
have moved on to a better place, such as Gramercy Park as someone else
suggested, or conversely they could be worse off, such as in prison?
Perhaps the term referred to a jail of the time?

Another offered "Up in G" . . . may mean "paradise", supported by a
long passage from the internet, beginning "GARDEN -- (church Slavonic) -
- paradise, land of the blessed, a marvelous place in the imaginations
of various peoples. Notions of a better life have been reflected in
the descriptions of G. ***" (The full passage or the internet address
upon request.)

Generally, the participants in this list hail from apple country, and I
don't mean the big apple, and have a profound ignorance of the NYC
subway system, which lead someone to propose that "up in G" meant
having ridden the "G" train to live in a more fashionable part of
town. Evidently I have at least one landsman on the list, since
someone else wrote to point out that the G line is the only subway line
that doesn't pass through Manhattan.

Then Michael Cassidy was heard from, regarding the possiblility
that "up in G" could mean "in jail":
>From a friend, my brother: The word "jail" is from English gaol pron.
jail. The "g" of gem, George, gimcrack, gin, etc. sounds like "j" to
illiterate irish people in NYC ca. 1850-1880 when slang term "g:" for
jail evolved, "g" is the cooler (cu/laire: a dark recessed place, a
dungeon, a jail.) probably here the "UP" refers to UP NORTH of NYC in
Ossining, AKA SING SING.
68% of NYC jail population in 1868 is irish or irish american.
It wasn't any classical reference to heaven it was a saol luim (slum)
term for JAIL (gaol.)
d
I think most of us suspect who Michael Cassidy's brother might be. I
asked, and indeed, 'tis himself.

All of this developed while I was trying to pull myself together enough
to look at HDAS -- it sits by the side of my bed, but somehow a couple
of days passed before I got around to noting down and posting the
information there.
The answer to this is to be found in Jonathan Lighter's Historical
Dictionary of American Slang: Under "G" he has "up in G",
meaning "superlative, doing very well", &c, and cites a passage dated
1884, and then 5 from 1894-95, including "Sidewalks" -- evidently it
was a voguish expression in the mid 1890s. A for "on the hog", the
jazz hounds among you will have of course remembered Bessie Smith's mid
1920s recording of Yellow Dog Blues, words by W. C. Handy. A woman
whose easy rider has decamped gets a
letter from a friend that he had passed through town on a south-bound
rattler, heading for where the Southern cross the Yellow Dog. "I saw
him there, and he was on the hog." Lighter defines the expression
as "living or travelling as a tramp". His first citation
is "Sidewalks", then another 1896 source, and also 1897, 1899 and
Yellow Dog Blues".
My posting concluded with the advice that "Every library specializing
in American history ought to own this dictionary and keep it in the
reading room." I haven't gotten anywhere at the N-Y Historical Society
with this suggestion, and don't have much hope for the Oneonta HS, et
al., but I've tried.

Meanwhile, Rachel Bliven posted a speculation which, if I may say so,
is a slight improvement on HDAS's explanation of the term. "I haven't
seen the sheet music, but could the "G" be a musical reference, as in
the top of the musical scale? It would be a familiar reference to the
generation who first sang the song around the piano." HDAS refers it
to the key of G, rather than to the top note of the 8-note scale.

I don't know the participants in this discussion. They may all have
been history buffs and not professionals in local history, though in
general the list attracts museum curators, librarians, &c. Even so,
it's a prime example of the way that a queston about words brings out
enthusiastic speculation and not "let's look it up in the appropriate
dictionary".

How many are surprised that Michael Cassidy is still holding out
for "g" being "jail"?

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.


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