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

[Wilson Gray]

Whoa! What a nostalgia rush! I haven't eaten or thought about a
Cho-Cho since I was a teen-ager in the early '50's.

-Wilson

On 7/6/06, Jonathon Green <slang at abecedary.net> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathon Green <slang at ABECEDARY.NET>
> Subject:      Re: "Zoom-zooms (or zoo-zoos) and wham-whams"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Chris Waigl wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> > 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"
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >
> > 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_:
> >
> > ----
> >
> 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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