"Za"

[Wilson Gray]

Sometimes, I forget about the cultural differences. This reminds of the
time, back in the '70's, that I told Haj Ross that I had run across in
"National Lampoon" a boss new phrase for "vomit": blow chunk. Haj chuckled
and replied that he had been using that since he was a frat boy,
approximately a dozen years earlier.

Of course, that does fit in with my own theory that it can
take anywhere from ten to thirty years for a once-novel bit
of slang to turn up in print.

Speaking of the 'Poon, a joke published there in the late '70's repecting a
group of rednecks who observed that another 'neck had "th'owed away a
perfectly good nigger" is still circulating in various manifestations. I
heard it again just
last night. The new versions avoid any reference to "nigger," but it's
still the same old joke,
which has gone pretty stale over the decades, though it was rather
side-splitting, the first time around.

-Wilson




On 5/4/06, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Za"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Goes back to late ' 60s in college lingo.
>
>   JL
>
> Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>   ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Wilson Gray
> Subject: "Za"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Heard as an abbreviation of "pizza." Google: 579,000,000 hits,
> primarily as the Dutch/Afrikaans abbreviation for "Zuid-Afrika"
>
> =3D "South Africa."
>
> -Wilson
>
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