premack (verb)

[Stephen Goranson]

Quoting Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>:

> On 7/25/07, Evan Bradley <yevb00 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I'm familiar with the noun"mack," as in "mack daddy."
>>
>> M-W has:
>> mack daddy
>> Etymology: argot mac, mack pimp, probably short for obsolete argot
>> mackerel, from Middle English makerel, from Anglo-French makerelle
>> procuress, ultimately from Middle Dutch mAkelaer broker
>> 1 slang : a conspicuously successful pimp
>> 2 slang : a slick womanizer
>> 3 slang : one that is the best
>>
>> Wiktionary adds: "(slang) Hitting on a potential sexual target." Here
>> it's listed as noun, but I've heard it used as a verb, e.g. " to mack
>> (on) (someone)". see also "get your mack on"
>> [ http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=get+your+mack+on ]
>> [ http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mack ]
>
> HDAS has the verb "mack", sense 1b: "(of a pimp) to talk (to a woman)
> in a fluently ingratiating way; (_hence_) (usu. of a man) to speak
> flirtatiously or make a sexual advance (to); (_broadly_) to flirt
> (with). Cites from 1968.
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer

Thanks. I misread--mixing the game (Strauss and Sohn), game theory
(from Cowen,
not quoted here, merely linked), and behaviorism (Premack)--and learned
two new
verbs.

Stephen

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