Suggestive Names

[davemarc]

For what it's worth, I think Sondheim said that, for West Side Story, he was
looking for a kind of fake slang that wouldn't date. Of course, I'm sure
standards of acceptability (and non-acceptability) played a role too.

David


----- Original Message -----
From: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2006 3:02 PM
Subject: Re: Suggestive Names


> It startled me, too.  How do they get away with it ?  Just like Stephen
Sondheim, in _West Side Story_ , got away with
>
>   "And we're gonna beat
>   Ev'ry last buggin' gang
> On the whole buggin' street !
> On the whole !
> Ever !
> Mother !
> Lovin' !
> Street !"
>
>   It wasn't network TV, but it *was* 1957.
>
>   Somehow this ex. of "bugging" as a euphemism is missing from HDAS 1,
which includes an early ex. from Harold Robins (_The Dream Merchants_,
1949).
>
>   JL
>
>
>
> Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
>   ---------------------- Information from the mail
header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Laurence Horn
> Subject: Re: Suggestive Names
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
>
> At 9:27 AM -0400 6/13/06, Laurence Horn wrote:
> >> I'm too fucking busy, and vice versa.
> >
> >Actually, we've discussed this on the list; it's a mot attributed to
> >Dorothy Parker ("Tell him I'm too fucking busy, and vice versa"). As
> >I recall, there was the usual debate over whether this was an actual
> >or apocryphal witticism--in either case, it is at least the classic
> >"mot d'escalier".
> >
> Actually, I can't find it on the archive--"You can lead a
> horticulture but you can't make her think", "You're the young man who
> doesn't know how to spell 'fuck'", and so on, but not the above. But
> it does seem to be standardly attributed to her, in particular as a
> response to an editor who was dunning her about a deadline. Fred, do
> you have this one in YDOQ?
>
> On a related topic, there's a commercial getting a lot of play for
> Burger King on behalf of a product that has evidently morphed from
> "Big Buckin Chicken" to "Big Huckin Chicken", although it's hard not
> to hear it as something else. See
>
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Burger+King+Big+Huckin+Ch
icken&btnG=Google+Search
> for discussion. I don't quite know how they get away with it.
>
> Larry
>
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