Quim

[Jonathan Lighter]

I'm sure I said, "PUT one over."

Neverthless, the most likely explanation may be that all concerned were unfamiliar with the original sense of "quim."

JL

Grant Barrett <gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Grant Barrett
Subject: Quim
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's a fairly novel use of "quim" 'girl' right out in the open with
no sexual or pejorative connotations. I suppose either a) there were no
such connotations at that time and place, b) the author of the article
didn't pick them up, or, c) as Jon Lighter has suggested off-list, a
writer pulled one over on a square editor.

1911 Indianpolis Star (Aug. 2) "Chorus Girls Arrive: Bring 'Newest
Talk'" p. 5: Stage hands, who were anxious to learn the prevailing
words of slang of the season, stood with their jaws agape during the
afternoon when the chorus girls twisted the English language into hard
knots for their benefit. [...]

"We are not going to be chorus girls, dears, warblers, chickens, quails
or squabs any longer. The correct dope this year is--well, don't tell
before the season has opened, but it's going to be quims."

"Quims, is it?" cried another chorus girl.

...

OED online has "quim" 'girl' from 1935, unpublished HDAS files have it
from 1909, a different cite than Partridge's of the same date in
"Dictionary of the Underworld" under "cop a quim." OED online has
"quim" 'vagina' to c1735.

...

Grant Barrett
gbarrett at worldnewyork.org

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