Suggestive Names

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Thu Jun 15 06:37:45 UTC 2006


Isn't "Officer Krupke, bug you!" or something similar, also in West Side Story?

-Wilson

On 6/14/06, davemarc <davemarc at panix.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       davemarc <davemarc at PANIX.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Suggestive Names
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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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