"sugar daddy"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 6/21/06, Charles Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
>
> Further affirming Gerald Cohen's reiterated argument
> that "sugar daddy" can mean, simply, "(male) sweetheart"--as
> well as the OED's "elderly man who lavishes gifts on a young
> woman":
>
> Early blues songs also sing about the synonymous "sugar
> papa" (specifically, "apple sugar papa"; Gertrude ["Ma"]
> Rainey, "Bessemer Bound Blues," 1926), "sugar man" (Bessie
> Mae Smith, "Sugar Man Blues" [parts 1 and 2], 1930); and the
> parallel "Sugar Mama" (Peetie Wheatstraw, "Sugar Mama,"
> 1938; Tommy McClennan, "New Sugar Mama," 1940).
>
> I found those examples in a old-fashioned way:  Using the
> efficient hard-copy Blues Lyric Poetry: A Concordance, by
> Michael Taft, 3 vols. (NY: Garland, 1984), keyed to Taft's
> compilation Blues Lyric Poetry: An Anthology (NY, Garland,
> 1983).

The new-fashioned way works pretty well too!  :->

http://www.dylan61.se/michael%20taft,%20blues%20anthology.txt.WebConcordance/c588.htm#SUGAR


--Ben Zimmer

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