(Adj) City

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Feb 19, 2007, at 6:54 AM, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 19, 2007 at 06:03:39AM -0800, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
>>
>> *surely* someone has studied these things.  onomasiologists?
>> slangologists?
>
> Well, there are two volumes of a big slang dictionary out
> there to check....
>
> HDAS has _fist city_ 'a fistfight' as the earliest example of
> these, from 1930; later examples include _weep city_ and _beef
> city_ from 1946 (with earlier reference), and others.

i'm away from my HDAS at the moment.  is this under "city"?

> It also
> cites Gold's _Jazz Lexicon_ as saying that jazzmen attribute
> it to the late 1930s but its main currency to the late 1940s.


> _Fat city_ is first from the early 1960s.

that sounds about right; i remember it from college.

in 1972 it was used as the title of a John Huston movie.

arnold

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