"punchboard"

[neil]

on 11/17/05 2:53 AM, Jonathan Lighter at wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      "punchboard"
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--> -
>
> Is anyone familiar with this slang term for "a notoriously promiscuous young
> woman who is not a prostitute" ?
>
> And if you are, can you reliably date it to before 1954 ?  Has anyone heard it
> or said it since 1990 ?
>
> JL

With the sense *sexually promiscuous female* - 1980s:

³Christ, if Roscoe finds out we¹ve been shacking up with a couple of
punchboards like those two, he¹ll ² ­John Cansler, Insatiable Honey,
Bee-Line, NY, 1970s

³Eddie may be AC/DC and Minnie may be a punchboard, but neither reality
exists because Vi says they don¹t.² ­Andrew M. Creeley, Happy are They that
Thirst for Justice, Severn House, London, 1988, 57

With the sense *a cheap prostitute* - 2000:

³We¹re not talking about five-dollar punchboards here. And none of them were
known streetwalkers, I read that much myself in the Evening Star.¹ ­George
P. Pelecanos, The Big Blowdown, Serpent¹s Tail, London, 2000, 152

³Tell me about the punchboard.²‹³Small-town girl imported to D.C. Hooked on
hop from what I can make out. The hop¹s what keeps her tied to her pimp.²
­Ibid, 245

--Neil Crawford