"Zoom-zooms (or zoo-zoos) and wham-whams"

[Jonathon Green]

Chris Waigl wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Chris Waigl <chris at LASCRIBE.NET>
> Subject:      "Zoom-zooms (or zoo-zoos) and wham-whams"
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>
> But the dominant meaning seems to be prison slang for small snacks such as
> candy bars that can be bought in the prison's own store. The Urban
> Dictionary also lists _zoo zoo_:
>
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I don't know what Jon Lighter has, but my earliest is:

1971-2 Shafer ‘Catheads [...] and Cho-Cho Sticks’ in Abernethy _Bounty
of Texas_ (1990) 217: whams, n. - cookies. [Ibid.] zoo- zoos or zuzus,
n. - cookies or candies.

All subseq. cites bear out the cookies/candies/snacks definitions and
the context is invariably prison. Most order the phr. 'zoo-zoos and...'
but Eugene Landy's _Underground Dictionary_ (1971) puts the 'wham-whams'
first.

JG

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