Loogie (1985)

[William Salmon]

Loogies are definitely hawked where I grew up in South Texas.  I never
knew anyone to slip one though.

Oyster sounds familiar, but its use would probably require special
circumstances. Urbandictionary gives a beaut for "dockyard oyster",
involving British sailors.


Quoting Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Loogie (1985)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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 <dave at wilton.net> wrote:
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>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Dave Wilton <dave at WILTON.NET>
>> 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
>>
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~Will Salmon

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