UBC graffiti (1969)

[Wilson Gray]

Thanks for the cites, Ben.

There's another variety of this game having to do with made-up brand
names and used as "jones" or joking insults, if there are such things.
A couple of examples that I can recall, both having to do with shoes,
are:

What brand of shoes [are] you wearing? They look like "Seymours."
You see more feet than you do shoes. [The shoes are so worn that not
only the soles, but also the uppers have holes in them.]

What brand of shoes [are] you wearing? They look like "Dunlops."
The heels [are] run down and *done* lopped over.

-Wilson


On 10/14/05, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at rci.rutgers.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: UBC graffiti (1969)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Fri, 14 Oct 2005 18:20:49 -0400, Wilson Gray wrote:
>
> >On 10/14/05, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at rci.rutgers.edu> wrote:
> >>
> >> Book titles are also very big among the john set.
> >> Revenge of the Lion by Claude Balls.
> >> Treasure in the Toilet by I. P. Nicols.
> >> Disaster at the Cliff by Eileen Dover.
> >> Crabs, You Say by Ivan Offelitch.
> >> Russian Revolution by Ubin Jakinoff.
> >> Moscow to Leningrad in Three Minutes by U. Bitchur Kokoff.
> >
> >"From Under The Stands," by Seymour Harriass.
> >"Line in The Sand," by Won Hung Lo.
> >"Yellow River," by I. P. Dailey
> >
> >Hm. These somehow don't seem as side-splittingly funny as they did
> >when I first heard them in elementary school.
>
> Nonetheless, you and your schoolmates were taking part in a folkloristic
> tradition going back at least to the 17th century. See:
>
> Charles Clay Doyle, "Title-Author Jokes, Now and Long Ago"
> Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 86 (Jan. 1973), pp. 52-54
> http://www.jstor.org/view/00218715/ap020344/02a00060/
>
> This follows up on the work of Dundes and George, who also catalogued
> Confucianisms, wanton daughter puns, etc.:
>
> Alan Dundes and Robert A. Georges, "Some Minor Genres of Obscene Folklore"
> Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 75 (Jul. 1962), pp. 221-226
> http://www.jstor.org/view/00218715/ap020294/02a00060/
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>
>


--
-Wilson Gray