another (long) naughty posting from GAT

[Wilson Gray]

"Pinas" = "penis"?

-Wilson

On 2/15/06, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: another (long) naughty posting from GAT
>
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>
> Admittedly a long shot, but "the bulls and the beaks" would at least make
> sense here. Someone not familiar with "beak," magistrate, could easily have
> rationalized the writer's handwriting into "bears."
>
>   BTW, the HDAS addenda now include a 1918 "motherfucker" and a couple of
> Civil War "cocksuckers."  Oddly, early exx. of  the "fucking" adj./adv. are
> still lacking.
>
>   Over to you, George....
>
>   JL
>
> George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU> wrote:
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> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: George Thompson
> Subject: another (long) naughty posting from GAT
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>
> Taking a break from reading about lowlife in NYC in the early 19th
> century, I've been reading a couple a couple of books on lowlife in NYC
> in the early 20th century. I hear that there is also lowlife in NYC in
> the early 21st century, but I wouldn't know. I actually lead quite a
> sedate life. Really.
>
> In any event: There was a group of do-gooders active in NYC in the
> 1900s through the 1920s known as the Committee of Fourteen; it sent
> investigators into low dives and dens of iniquity to report on what they
> found there. The Committee's papers are now at the NYPL. The
> investigators wrote downnot only the low and vulgar behavior they
> witnessed, but also the low
> and vulgar language they heard.
>
> I had hoped that I could verify the quotations below in the originals,
> because I thought that the library here had their papers on microfilm, but
> it turns out that we have the papers of the Committee of Fifteen, active
> 1900-1901. (We miss by just 1; damn!) It does not seem that the
> papers of the Committee of Fourteen have been filmed. I had also hoped
> that these passages would have given more antedatings than they do. But
> there are a couple of nice ones, and otherwise at least they offer early
> appearances of these expressions from the lips of the plain people of
> New York. The citations give the page of the text where the quotation
> appears, and the page and footnote number where it is sources and dated.
>
> ["an obviously drunk" black woman speaking; the setting The West Side
> Café, corner of Carmine & Minetta streets, in 1911 or 1912]
> "Did you hear," she asked the bartender, "that Sadie got 'punched?'"
> (Sadie had been arrested and taken to night court at Jefferson Market
> Courthouse to "explain how it happened.") . . . "About five minutes ago
> the cop saidto me, 'Beat it.' But I said 'You cocksucker! I can't walk
> fast; my
> feet are sore.' He said, 'Don't you see Lennon coming?' I said, 'Fuck
> Lennon.'"
> From investigator's reports, Committee of Fourteen Papers, NYPL, box 28,
> dated either August 26, 1911, February 6, 1912, or "May 191[2?]"; quoted
> in Gerald W. McFarland, Inside Greenwich Village: A New York City
> Neighborhood, 1898-1918, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press,
> c2001, p. 161. His footnote isn't clear as to which report this comes
> from; the explanatory note within () regarding Sadie's problem is
> McFarland's.
> "Punched" looks like a typo for "pinched", but it's not my typo.
> "cocksucker" – HDAS (2a) = 1918, in the sense of a general term of abuse.
> "Fuck Lennon" – HDAS (3a) = ca 1895, [1905], ca 1915, &c.
>
>
> The following are all from investigator's reports, Committee of Fourteen
> Papers, NYPL, as quoted in Pursuing Johns: Criminal Law Reform,
> Defending Character, and New York City's Committee of Fourteen,
> 1920-1930, by Thomas C. Mackey. Columbus : Ohio State University Press,
> c2005.
>
> They entered the sitting room and the women approached them, urging them
> "to hurry up and get fucked as there were other men waiting." ***
> Whitehouse reported that he sat on the edge of the bed and tried talking
> with Hattie but "she kept saying hurry up I have got to go to the other
> room[,] there is others who want to be fucked as well as you." (p. 41;
> fn 24, p. 232) Box 28, "Investigator Reports, 1905-1915"), Committee of
> Fourteen Papers, dated May 2, 1905.
> At one point the madam asked Brewster, "dont you want to get fucked to?
> [sic] and he said no. He explained to her that he was married only a
> few months and that "I get all I want at home." Ever the salesperson,
> the madam responded to his explanation by saying "Don't you know that a
> change of pasture is good sometime?" (p. 42; fn 25, p. 232) Box 28,
> "Investigator Reports, 1905-1915"), Committee of Fourteen Papers, dated
> May 2, 1905.
> "get fucked"/"be fucked" If I recall, we discussed here a while ago the
> proposition that statements in which the man was the passive recipient
> and the woman the active agent in fucking was a recent development.
> Perhaps the posters who held that it was were not averring that it was
> absolutely new, but merely that it was now a common formulation. In any
> event, behold here, from 1905.
> "a change of pasture" = This isn't in Jonathon Green's new slang
> dictionary, but probably it can't be supposed to be a slang term with
> the specific meaning of "a new woman".
>
> Hattie then grabbed Huyurter and, as he wrote, she "opened my pants,
> took out my pinas, examined closely, washed it off and told me friend I
> am all right also; she layed on top of the bed exposing herself from
> head to foot." (p. 42) (May 11, 1905; fn 27, p. 232) Box 28,
> "Investigator Reports, 1905-1915"), Committee of Fourteen Papers, dated
> May 11, 1905.
> "pinas" = This isn't in the OED. If it is a misprint or a misreading of
> the original, what can the correct word be?
>
> Eddie reportedly boasted to the investigators that "This is the only
> place in the precinct that is doing business, we have got the bears and
> the bills fixed all right." *** He then urged the investigators to
> come back the following day, saying we are going to fuck the police
> tomorrow sure." (pp. 41-42; fns 28 & 29, p. 232) Box 28, "Investigator
> Reports, 1905-1915"), Committee of Fourteen Papers, dated May 20, 1905.
> "the bears and the bills" looks like a typo for "bears and bulls" – not
> that that expression makes sense here -- but it's not my typo. "Bulls"
> could certainly = "cops"; "bills" = ??; "bears" = the magistrates?
> "fuck the police" – HDAS 2c = 1866, 1927, 1932, &c.
>
> From reports of investigators of the Committee of Fourteen, referring to
> The Friendly Inn, 116 Mott street.
> "You want a lay, don't you?" (p. 44; fn 32, p. 233) (File "30th-45th
> Streets", "Investigator Reports, 1927-1929"), Committee of Fourteen
> Papers, dated January 12, 1928.
> "a lay" – HDAS 1b = 1928
>
> She wanted to get started, "to play house," and led him into the
> bedroom. (p. 45; fn 35, p. 233) Box 36 (File "50th-55th Streets",
> "Investigator Reports, 1927-1929"), Committee of Fourteen Papers, no
> specific date.
> "play house" – HDAS 1959 (under "house"); OED lacks this sense, has the
> sense of a children's game under II 17.
>
> He asked her, "Do you French?" (street slang for oral sex) and she said,
> "Yes, more than that." [The investigator] asked her what she meant and
> she claimed to be a "three way girl." He asked her to be specific and
> she explained, "the natural way, and up the rectum and french." [The
> investigator asked] . . . "How do you manage through the back way?"
> Vaseline was the solution, she informed him, but that her "friend was
> too big." She added, "I like the small ones for the back way. I get a
> wonderful kick out of it." (pp. 45-46; fn 36, p. 233) Box 36 (File
> "50th-55th Streets", "Investigator Reports, 1927-1929"), Committee of
> Fourteen Papers, dated February 7, 1929.
> "French" – HDAS 2a = 1923
> "the back way" – HDAS = not found; to be considered a euphemism rather
> than slang? But the investigators don't otherwise clean up their
> informants talk, it seems.
> "kick out of it" – HDAS 6s= [*1899], 1917, *1917, 1918 &c.
> "three way girl" This sense of "three way" isn't in the OED.
>
> From a report on People vs. Alexander Williams: Blash's questioning then
> shifted from Williams to the unnamed woman.
> "Where is the money you received?" he asked her. In response, she . . .
> told the officer, "Go fuck yourself; it's none of your damn business."
> (p. 73; fn 48, p. 240) Box 56 (File "Customer Cases", "Customer Laws"),
> Committee of Fourteen Papers, dated June 21, 1920.
> "Go fuck yourself" – HDAS = [*1879], 1897, [1905], 1920, &c. I was
> rather hoping that this very useful expression would prove to have been
> coined by this Brooklyn whore, but evidently not so; but perhaps she had
> a role in popularizing it? Our Vice-President, I believe, learned the
> expression at his mother's knee. But he was born in 1941, so. . . .
> She could be his grandmother, I suppose.
>
> Brewster closed his report by noting that as he was leaving at 1:10 AM,
> Mamie turned to the two or three women in the sitting room and said,
> "come girls[,] go to bed and be up at 8 o'clock ready to fuck like
> hell." (p. 41; fn 22, p. 232) Committee of Fourteen Papers, dated May
> 1, 1905
>
> She agreed to service both men in the room, adding, "$15, and I
> swallow." (p. 45; fn. 33, p. 233) Box 36 (File "30th-45th Streets",
> "Reports, 1927-1929"), Committee of Fourteen Papers, dated February 13,
> 1928.
>
> 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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