Judge Joe Brown redux

[Wilson Gray]

On May 17, 2005, at 2:46 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Judge Joe Brown redux
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> Wilson, are these familar terms from your (now legendary) youth ?
> They only went mainstream in the mid sixties or early seventies.
>
> JL
>

"Down" as a verb is older than my ability to speak and understand
English. "Give slack" I first heard in 1954. The speaker was a rogue
and bully - Booker Graves - that I was once unfortunately acquainted
with back in St. Louis. He didn't bully me because I was so "heavy"
that I commanded respect. But he did bully a friend of mine, whom he
addressed and referred to as "Girl."

"Heavy" - long form - "heavy on top" - was applied to someone one was
recognized as an "intellectual." As a street term, "intellectual"
meant, "gets a lot of A's, reads books without pictures in them, and
has a huge store of esoteric knowledge that, though useless on the
street, is, nevertheless, stunningly impressive. You can ask anything
and get the answer." "Heavy" referred to the weight of the knowledge
borne by the person and "on top" specified that the weight was in the
form of knowledge contained in the person's brain.

Booker was also my source for "tighten up/lighten up." The two phrases
were only trivially distinct in those days in St. Louis.

-Wilson



> Wilson Gray <wilson.gray at RCN.COM> wrote:
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> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Wilson Gray
> Subject: Judge Joe Brown redux
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>
> I've noticed that the judge, though he's younger than I, nevertheless
> uses slang terms in their older, "correct" forms and not in their more
> modern, "corrupted" forms. (For those with no sense of humor, I'm
> writing with tongue in cheek.)
>
> For example, the good judge doesn't "put someone down" (which normally
> means to "break off a relationship with someone), he "downs" [i.e.
> "insults"] someone. He doesn't "cut someone slack," he "_gives_ someone
> slack."
>
> -Wilson Gray
>
>
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