Take the rag off the bush

Sun Oct 22 21:33:22 UTC 2006

My intuition has always been that "rap" having to do with some kind of
speech act was derived from the still-used "hit (on)," which, of
course, as a slang term, has nothing to do with the physical act and
everything to do with speech. But, other than that feeling, I got
nothing, to coin a phrase.

FWIW, "get over on [someone]" = "take advantage of [someone]" is still
alive and kicking, at least in judicial circles, used by both the
judges and those appearing before them, judging by the "judge" shows.

It was also on a judge show that I first heard "down [someone]" used
in the sense of "put [someone] down" used by someone who was neither
black nor from Saint Louis: "I'm not trying to _down_ you. I just want
to defend myself."  For about the past half-century or so, I'd been
under the impression that this use of "down" was a peculiarity of
Saint Louis BE. You never know, to coin a phrase.

-Wilson

On 10/22/06, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Take the rag off the bush
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> IIRC it was his lawyer.
>
>   But "rap" = talk is virtually absent from print before the mid sixties.  HDAS (and OED) has a possible example from Damon Runyon in 1929, but I suspect the meaning there is "to recognize (someone)."  But what do I know ?
>
>   "Rap" doesn't appear in any of the '40s jive-talk glossaries that I can think of. Of course, these were produced in NYC. African-American speakers in the Midwest and beyond were extremely underrepresented in print before the sixties.
>
>   JL
>
>
>
> Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>   ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Wilson Gray
> Subject: Re: Take the rag off the bush
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I didn't use either "patter" or "rap" in the '40's. I know that
> "patter," as opposed to the complete phrase, "the pitter-patter of
> little feet," was used by Thomas "Fats" Waller in his combination song
> / rap, Your Feet's Too Big: "'Baby patter?' Baby *elephant* patter!" I
> don't have any reason to believe that this use of "patter" was based
> on anything other than "the pitter-patter of little feet," having
> nothing to do with speech.
>
> As for Eldridge, what audience was he addressing such that he felt it
> was necessary for him to define his non-standard use of a word as
> ordinary as that of "rap" as late as 1965?
>
> The sole point was that I was reminded of that old, annoying saying
> that I did hear in the '40's, to the effect that "'Ain't' ain't a word
> because it ain't in the dictiionary."
>
> That is to say, your insight that I was just a-birdturdin' is
> absolutely correct. That post was merely a rap. As my Canadian former
> roommate used to say, "What the hell, eh?" "No harm, no foul," to coin
> a phrase.
>
> -Wilson
>
> On 10/21/06, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> > Sender: American Dialect Society
> > Poster: Jonathan Lighter
> > Subject: Re: Take the rag off the bush
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Wilson, were you "rappin' " and patterin' in the '40s ? Or only patterin' and beatin' your gums ?
> >
> > When Eldridge Cleaver used "rap" in a letter in 1965, he still felt he had to translate it.
> >
> > JL
> >
> > Wilson Gray wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> > Sender: American Dialect Society
> > Poster: Wilson Gray
> > Subject: Re: Take the rag off the bush
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > I think that it depends upon how old one is, Jimbo. For instance, the
> > speaker / writer may be ancient enough to remember wishing that WWII
> > would last until he was old enough to enlist and wear all those cool
> > uniforms and carry those cool rifles, machine guns, hand grenades,
> > etc., and sleep in those fun foxholes, when not broiling Japanese
> > soldiers with flame throwers or shooting German snipers out of church
> > steeples. Or even old enough to remember when Northrop and Grumman
> > were separate companies competing in the building of aeroplanes for
> > what was then the Army Air Corps and, later, the Army Air Force. You
> > know. Back in the day when "rap" and "patter" were still defined
> > solely by those who used the words in their everyday speech and not
> > yet by dictionaries.
> >
> > -Wilson
> >
> > On 10/20/06, James A. Landau wrote:
> > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> > > Sender: American Dialect Society
> > > Poster: "James A. Landau"
> > > Subject: Re: Take the rag off the bush
> > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >
> > > On Fri 10/20/06 12:08 AM an insomniac Wilson Gray wrote
> > >
> > >
> > > This reminds me of a bit of patter (I've been using "rap" in this
> > > sense, but it seems to me that what people actually said in those days
> > > was "patter") used by Saint Louis's original black DJ, "Spider" Burks
> > > (of course he had shows entitled "Spinning With Spider" and "The
> > > Spider's Web"!): "They (the musicians who developed what was then
> > > known as "modern" jazz) _took the ship out of the bottle_ and made it
> > > stand for a brand-new sound."
> > >
> > >
> > > I find it difficult for anyone, black or white, to consider "rap" and "patter" to be synonyms.
> > >
> > > "Patter" means a stream of words with the connotation that there is little or no content, e.g. "a carnival barker's patter", "a Gilbert and Sullivan patter song". A synonym would be "blarney".
> > >
> > > "Rap" on the other hand always implies content to the words, e.g. in 1969 a black soldier told me "and I had a [newspaper] column in which I could rap as much as I wanted". It is no surprise that "rap music" is frequently controversial for its content. Also "patter" can mean any stream of words, whereas "rap music" has a very strong beat that makes the words stand out so that it is difficult for the listener to ignore them. "Patter" could imply a hypnotic effect; rap music is just the opposite.
> > >
> > > "Take the ship out of the bottle" is a good piece of imagery because model ships are placed in bottles. What Mr. Spider is saying is that these musicians took an obscure "little" musical form and made it widely available and popular, or in other words, "big". Rags are not normally found on bushes so there is no such obvious imagery to "Take the rag off the bush." The best guess I can come up with is that, since a woman "on the rag" is having her period, "take the rag off the bush" means for a woman to remove the pads from her crotch because her period is over and hence she is more something-or-other. But I admit I'm reaching for that one.
> > >
> > > James A. Landau
> > > Test Engineer
> > > Northrop-Grumman Information Technology
> > > 8025 Black Horse Pike, Suite 300
> > > West Atlantic City NJ 08232 USA
> > >
> > > Hmmm. Looking at my signature block I am reminded of an eggcorn I once saw:
> > > "Grumman's Chinese Theater". Must have been where "Tog Gun" premiered.
> > >
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> > race. He brought death into the world.
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> --
> Everybody says, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange
> complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -----
> Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is knows how deep
> a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our
> race. He brought death into the world.
>
> --Sam Clemens
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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--
Everybody says, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange
complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is knows how deep
a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our
race. He brought death into the world.

--Sam Clemens

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