Palm Beach=cheese sandwich (1942); Waco=Dr. Pepper (1938)

Sun Jul 1 21:02:08 UTC 2007

It's July 1st, and I'm trying to figure out what GenealogyBank added to
America's Historical Newspapers for the month of June. Every month, I gotta beg
the company for ten days to provide this information.
...
Readex still has everything in AHN Series 4 and Series 5 as "forthcoming,"
last updated May 23rd.
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OED revised the entry "Palm Beach" in March 2007, but there is no "cheese
sandwich" definition. Is "Palm Beach" in the next HDAS?
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The Waco (Dr. Pepper), Dallas (Coca-Cola), and Waxahachie in the 1938 and
1975 articles below are interesting. Will "Waco" be in a forthcoming DARE  or
HDAS?
...
NewspaperArchive is not performing searches for me right now. Must be the
rain here in Texas (yes, it's raining again now). Some New Yorkers brought  rain
with them.
...
...
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10 July 1938, Galveston Daily News, pg. 4, col. 7:
_Car-Hop Jargon Complicated, but_
_If Mastered Is Never Forgotten_
_And Makes Taking Orders Simple_
(...)
"Shoot a crowd; bust one; Waco; straw in, all the way; eighty-six!"
...
Certainly you have. But you probably wouldn't believe that all those words
so uttered were orders for:
...
Three cokes, a lemonade, a Dr. Pepper, a strawberry soda with strawberry  ice
cream, and six glasses of water.
...
In "soda-buster" or "car-hop" parlance, practically every drink and  delicacy
concocted behind the fountain has its own individual name, shortened  usually
or made more impressive for purposes of remembering by association with
something else.
...
Although some of the downtown drug stores have eliminated the use of such
slang by substituting written orders for everything, beach drive-in stands still
 largely use the slang system for drinks, and some still do for orders of
food.
...
Like swimming the car-hops say, once the lingo is mastered, it is never
forgotten. About two months are required for complete mastery of the auxiliary
language, and after that apprenticeship, any novice car-hop develops all the
confidence necessary to bawl out abbreviated English with the best of the
veterans.
...
After the car-hop places the order, the person behind the fountain or
counter, often called the "soda-buster," repeats or "echoes" the order to avoid
mistakes in filling it.
...
The next time you stop by your favorite drive-in stand or drug store for a
drink, have the following dictionary of soda jargon at your elbow. When the
car-hops get busy and start shouting their orders at the fountain, don't be
upset or curious. Look up what your neighbor is ordering. And don't fool
yourself. It's not as easy as it sounds.
...
"Eighty"--a glass of water. Add one for each additional glass. However,
"eighty-six" shouted by the man or girl behind the fountain (Col. 8--ed.)  usually
means, "We're out of that. Try something else." In some places,
"eighty-nine" means that an attractive girl has entered the place, and all  accordingly
turn to look at her.
...
"Choc-in" means chocolate ice cream soda, and "straw-in" and "van-in" mean
strawberry or vanilla sodas. Ordinarily vanilla ice cream is used, but "all the
 way" added to the soda means that ice cream the same flavor as the soda
ordered  is to be used.
...
"Shot" means a Coca-Cola. For each additional one, a new name is added.  Thus
"shoot a pair" is two; "shoot a crowd" is three' "shoot the navy" is four,
and "shoot the army" is five.
...
Dr. Pepper is called "Waco" because the drink, although it is now bottled
here, originated in Waco. Thus: "Waco a pair," "Waco a crowd," etc.
...
"Cut the hail" means that the drink is to be made without ice. "In the  rain"
signifies when added to an order for a drink that it is to be made with
plain water, instead of the carbonated water usually used.
...
"Van stick"--vanilla ice cream cone. "Choc dish"--a dish of chocolate ice
cream. "California"--an orangeade. "Squeeze"--lemonade. "JD"--a plain milk
chocolate.
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"Straw sun"--strawberry sundae.
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The variations on Coca-Colas also are interesting. "Cripple a shot"--lime
coke; "shot white"--vanilla coke. Phosphates are usually shortened to  "phos."
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"Old style"--root beer. "Little Willie"--grape juice. "Make it cackle" when
added to an order for a drink means simply to add an egg.
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In taking orders for hamburgers, initials are often used to save time and
for ease in remembering what the customer wants on or off of them. Thus:
"Hamburger, C. P."--hamburger, cut the pickles. "Hamburger, C. M. P.
M."--hamburger, cut the mustard, put mayonnaise. Also, "C. O." and "J.  B."--cut the onions
and just butter.
...
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4 May 1942, Dallas Morning News, section II, pg. 2:
Weldon Brewer in Daily Texan: Until recently, before soda jerkers on the
university campus became unusually scarce, fountain attendants employed through
the Student Employment Bureau were required to pass a quiz on drugstore
jargon.  The most common slang expressions used at the soda fountain that have not
been  mentioned here include the following: "Sissyburger"--hamburger without
onions,  with mayonnaise instead of mustard. "Rusty-dusty" and
"Chockdust"--chocolate  malted milk, "Shoot one in the rain"--coke made with plain water.
"Shoot one  down south"--coke without ice. "Cackle salad"--chicken salad. "Palm
Beach"--pimiento cheese sandwich. "Blood"--catsup. "Shanghai hot"--hot tea.
"Easy on the hail"--just a little ice. "Calif"--orange juice.
...
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29 December 1947, Dallas Morning News, section II, pg. 12:
Most every dish or drink served at the fountain has a slang name and Miss
Reed speaks the language well. "Palm Beach" for some unexplained reason has come
 to mean a cheese sandwich.
...
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3 September 1975, Dallas Morning News, section D, pg. 1:
_Soda jerking,_
_"bee's knees"_
_slang in past_
By RENA PEDERSON
...
You don't heat many orders for a "Dobbin" or a "Waco" at pharmacies these
days.
...
But back in the 1920s and 1930s, when soda fountains were the popular place
for everyone to sip and spoon, that's how a barbecue sandwich and a Dr. Pepper
 were ordered. Two barbecues with nothing else on them became a "Pair of
Dobbins,  hold everything but the heat."
(...)
"'Shoot one" was a Coke," said Mrs. Newton, "and 'Stretch One' was a large
Coke."
...
Likewise, Mrs. Sanderson chimed in, "'Shoot a wild one' was cherry Coke.
'Shoot one frowning' was a lime Coke and a 'Shanghi' was an iced tea."
...
The two said "Squeeze one" meant a lemonade, "Draw one" called for a coffee
and "Vanilla Dust" was actually a malt.
...
Charlie Day, who's been "jerking sodas" at the Highland Park Pharmacy for  51
years, recalled that a "400" used to be universal language for a small milk
and an "800" was a large milk, or course.
...
He also explained a Dr. Pepper was called a "Waco" because the drink
originated in Waco. "Because they bottled Coca-cola in Dallas, they called a  Coke a
'Dallas.' If you had an order for one of each, you called the double  order a
'Waxahachie,' because it was halfway between Dallas and Waco."
...
Day also recalled such specialties as a lemon Coke ("Shoot one yellow") and
an ammonia Coke (It was 1/2 teaspoon ammonia in a Coca-Cola. You don't hear of
 them anymore, but they would sure straighten you up in the mornings!")
...
The ammonia was a compound used in some medical preparations, not that used
for cleaning, which is dangerous if taken internally.
...
Other bygone specials included "California" for orangeade, "Shoot one
honest" for a cherry Coke and "Shoot one blond" for a vanilla Coke. If you  ordered
"choc on" you got the chocolate sauce on a sundae, but if you said "choc  in"
you got the sauce in a chocolate soda.
...
Day's apprentice, 17-year-old Andy Turk, said he's learned a lot of phrases
from customers' requests. They include "Palm Beach" for pimento cheese
sandwich,  "mince" for ham salad, "Black Cow" for chocolate milk with a dip of ice
cream,  and "Black on White" for a chocolate soda with vanilla ice cream.
...
Gerald McMinn of Adams Oates Plaza Pharmacy remembered water was not only
called "H2O," but "81" or "82" or "83," depending on how many glasses of water
you needed.
...
...
...
(OED)

Palm Beach, n.

orig. U.S.
[< Palm Beach,  the name of a county in Florida.]
More fully Palm Beach cloth. A kind of lightweight fabric used  for clothing.
Freq. attrib., esp. as Palm Beach suit, Palm Beach jacket, etc.
1913  N.Y. Times 14 June  5 (advt.) New styles in checked woolens, Palm Beach
cloth and eponge. 1928  _H. L. FOSTER_
(http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-f2.html#h-l-foster)  If you go to S. Amer. 17  In..tropical lands white
linen or palm beach are desirable.  1940  Chambers's Techn. Dict. 610/1 Palm
Beach, a light  fabric of plain weave made from cotton warp and lustre worsted
weft, or entirely  of cotton. 1966  G. PARKS  Choice Of Weapons xv. 164 Then  he
bought himself a white Palm  Beach suit, black tie and white pointed-toe
shoes. 1983  E. MCCLANAHAN  Nat. Man (1984) xiv. 156 Mr.  Ockerman attended and
came back beaming, accompanied by a wizened old sport  wearing an outsized,
off-white Palm Beach suit in an advanced state of  deterioration. 2000  Boston
Globe (Nexis) 6 Aug. A24 He was walking along Walnut Street..wearing slightly
mismatched Palm Beach jacket and  slacks.

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