Pokadope: nonce or regional slang?

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Wed Jan 4 23:20:05 UTC 2006


On 1/4/06, neil <neil at typog.co.uk> wrote:
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       neil <neil at TYPOG.CO.UK>
> Subject:      Re: Pokadope: nonce or regional slang?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> on 1/4/06 9:16 PM, Wilson Gray at hwgray at GMAIL.COM wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: Pokadope: nonce or regional slang?
> >
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> --> -
> >
> > On 1/4/06, Jonathan Lighter <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:      Re: Pokadope: nonce or regional slang?
> >>
> >>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> > ------
> >>
> >> I have never heard of this.
> >>
> >> JL
> >
> >
> >
> > I'm a native of East Texas and I've never heard of it, either. Are the
> > speakers black or white? If they're white, that fact alone,
> unfortunately,
> > would easily explain why I've never heard of it, leaving us no wiser
> than we
> > were with Jon's reply.
> >
> > -Wilson Gray
>
> Both 'white' speakers. But -- hey -- it's just a novel. Artistic licence
> [license] maybe.
>
> --Neil


Artistic license/licence works for me. ;-) BTW, I've just heard someone on
the news ask, "How can anybody get by with this?" as opposed to, "How can
anybody get away with this?" The first version is more likely to occur in
Southern speech, the other is more likely in Northern. But, "I'm just
getting by" is used in both the North and the South.

Just thought I'd throw that in, FWIW.

-Wilson

>
> > neil <neil at TYPOG.CO.UK> wrote:
> >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >> -----------------------
> >> Sender: American Dialect Society
> >> Poster: neil
> >> Subject: Pokadope: nonce or regional slang?
> >>
> >>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> > ------
> >>
> >> My copy of (R)HDAS end at 'O', so could Jesse or anyone else with
> access
> >> to
> >> forthcoming 'P' tell me if 'pokadope' (presumably a reference to a
> female
> >> as
> >> sex object) is nonce or whether you have other citations. The novel is
> se=
> > t
> >> in east Texas in the 1930s:
> >>
> >> "What do you think of that ass?"
> >>
> >> Rooster felt himself turning red. All he could say was, "It's nice."
> >>
> >> "McBride laughed. "Nice. That's some first-rate pokadope."
> >>
> >> --Joe R. Lansdale, 'Sunset and Sawdust', Alfred A. Knopf
> >> [Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London, 2004, 206=AD207]
> >>
> >>
> >> Neil Crawford
> >> neil at typog.co.uk
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ---------------------------------
> >> Yahoo! DSL Something to write home about. Just $16.99/mo. or less
> >>
>



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