judo chop

[Scot LaFaive]

I sure hope the definition in the OED (if it makes it) includes the foot
note that there is, in actuality, no "Judo chop" in Judo. Also, I think I
first heard this from the first Austin Powers movie; Austin Powers would say
"Judo chop!" every time he used it on one of Dr. Evil's minions.

Scot


>From: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
>Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject: judo chop
>Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2007 15:49:37 -0700
>
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
>Subject:      judo chop
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Some months ago there was a discussion about "judo chop," whixh is not in
>the OED.
>
>   I have serendipitously found this ex. from over half a century ago:
>
>   1953 Alastair Mars _Unbroken_ (rpt. Barnsley, S. Yorks.: Pen & Sword
>Press, 2006) 48: Bill [was] banging the sides of his hands furiously
>against the control-room ladder. "What on earth is that for?' I asked.
>   "He held out both hands. 'Feel,' he invited....'Banging them helps to
>harden them.'...With one hand he cut the air in a short sharp arc. 'The
>Judo [_sic_] chop,' he explained. 'You can kill a man that way.'"
>
>   Captain Mars commanded, not a rocketship, but the British submarine
>_Unbroken_ in 1942 when the conversation allegedly took place.
>
>   Not only do I recall "judo chop" from my youth, I recall it in a
>comparable context. A classmate was banging the sides of his hands, on the
>Formica of a lunchroom table, as I recall, to "harden them," so that he too
>could kill people as necessary.
>
>   JL
>
>
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