"sugar daddy"

[Charles Doyle]

Hey, I LIKE poking around in libraries!

--Charlie
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---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 16:23:51 -0400
>From: Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
>Subject: Re: "sugar daddy"
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
>---------------------- Information from the mail header ----
-------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-
L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer
<bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
>Subject:      Re: "sugar daddy"
>------------------------------------------------------------
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>
>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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