SPLASH or SLASH? [brass tacks]

[neil]

> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: SPLASH or SLASH?
>
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>
> What is the evidence that "brass tacks" is "rhyming slang" for "facts"?
>
>   JL
>

Julian Franklyns' 'A Dictionary of Rhyming Slang', Routledge, 1960 states
that it is Cockney rhyming slang [where 'facks', as it would be pronounced,
then rhymes with 'tacks'].

But then he comments: "Of 19.C origin, it had become naturalized in America
by 1903, and many people believe it to have been imported here from
America."

Is it evidence for this latter observation you seek? Perhaps 'believe' is
the operative word...

--Neil Crawford



> RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
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> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: RonButters at AOL.COM
> Subject: SPLASH or SLASH?
>
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> In a message dated 11/20/07 7:14:29 PM, jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA writes:
>
>
>>> It seems more likely that "Jack Dash" comes from "splash" than "slash" (?)
>>
>> Not to me, not directly, anyway. "Slash" was my automatic inference
>> for rhyming slang. "Slash" is a well-established term for "urinate"
>> -- immediately familiar to me. I've never heard "splash" for
>> "urinate" that I can recall. I imagine it may well be a basis for
>> "slash," but I'm not aware of its being in use per se.
>>
>> I would have expected "Jack Flash" for a rhyme there, though -- I
>> wonder why "Jack Dash" was preferred.
>>
>> James Harbeck.
>>
>>
>
> According to J. Green's Cassell's Dictionary, both SPLASH and SLASH are Brit.
> slang terms for urination. Neither is familiar to me in US slang, but SPLASH
> seemed to me more intuitively likely because urine splashes but does not slash
> (except in a fanciful way).
>
> Slang is not necessarily the basis for Rhyming Slang, e.g., BRASS TACKS =
> FACTS; BRISTOLS from BRISTOL CITY, rhymes with TITTY--of course, TITTY is a
> common, somewhat vulgar (still?) term for BREAST, but I would not consider it
> slang. To complicate things more, the BR of BREAST would seem to have effected
> BRISTOL rather than some other "city"?
>
>
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