Loogie (1985)

[Jonathan Lighter]

HDAS II has 1785 [!] for "oyster," 1974 for "hawker" (but my informant told me it was current in his youth in Philadelphia in the 1920s).

  JL

Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: Loogie (1985)
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Thanks for your parenthetical note, Dave! I was saying to myself,
"_slip_ a loogie"? Don't you _hawk_ a loogie?

BTW, are people here familiar with the use of "oyster" as a synonym
for loogie? When I was in the Army, a couple of other recruits were
laughing about the poor bastard who had stupidly picked up a gigantic
oyster while our unit was on post police (picking up all the trash off
the grass of the parade ground by hand). When I asked how anyone could
have come across an oyster in the middle of a grassy field, it was
explained to me that "oyster" was just another word for "hawker." The
latter term was also unfamiliar to me, but it didn'r need explanation
because I was familiar with "hawk" as "clear one's throat." You "blow"
a hawker, by the way.

-Wilson

On 7/2/06, Dave Wilton wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Dave Wilton
> Subject: Loogie (1985)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> In the sense of a wad of phlegm, HDAS has 1988:
>
> San Francisco Chronicle, 27 April 1985, "A Sci-Fi Horror Surprise," p. 38:
> "In the middle of a French kiss, she slips a killer loogie into his face."
>
> (Technically, this article uses "loogie" to refer to a phlegm-like alien
> creature, not a wad of human phlegm, but the writer assumes the readers know
> what a loogie is.)
>
> I'm sure earlier citations are out there. I recall the term from my high
> school days several years before this.
>
> I've also found several much earlier citations of "Loogie" being used as a
> nickname. The reference in these cases is unclear.
>
> --Dave Wilton
> dave at wilton.net
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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