preadolescent "tortures"

[Grant Barrett]

On Sep 30, 2006, at 14:07, Peter Farruggio wrote:
> What about the card game called "nucks" (for "knuckles")?  I forget
> the content of the game, but after each round the loser had to hold
> out his fist, knuckle side up, while the winner whacked down on the
> knuckles several times with the edge of the deck of cards.

We did something like this with those big plastic combs that we
carried around in our back pockets during the Seventies and Eighties.
You'd rest the comb on the top of the other person's fist. You'd try
pick up the comb and smack the fist with it before they could move
their hand.

There was the "sissy test." You took a pencil eraser to the back of
your own hand, rubbing it until it bled, just to prove you weren't a
wuss. I never did this--it was a pretty sorry action by a outsiders
seeking peer approval.

"Titty twisters" were big, too. Just a big twist of someone else's
nipple when they weren't expecting it. Guys only, of course, because
girls' breasts were sacred territory.

Kneeing someone in the crotch was always good for a laugh. "Racking"
hurt like a mofo.

Also flinching. You'd make like you were going to hit someone, they'd
shy, duck, or flinch and then you'd have the right to say "one for
flinching" and hit them as hard as possible on the upper arm.

Grant Barrett
gbarrett at worldnewyork.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org