Slinging coffee

[Jonathan Lighter]

People have been "slinging" (serving or handing out) stuff since the 19th C., and Wilson's slightly  different sense is probably at least as old.

  JL

Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: Slinging coffee
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And then there's "slinging snot," a gross, IMO, slang term all too
often used by my mother to describe the weeping or crying of a child,
e.g. your humble correspondent.

-Wilson

On 2/10/08, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Benjamin Barrett
> Subject: Slinging coffee
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I've heard the expression "sling coffee" meaning "work as a barista"
> only from baristas, but Webidence indicates it's more than just jargon:
>
> Are you tired of being called "just a latte slinger" and having to
> explain your craft to your family and friends? Does it piss you off that
> people think that your job requires no skill or education? (12 Feb 2006,
> teri_lee, http://community.livejournal.com/indie_baristas)
>
> I was not put on this planet to scrub toilets, sling coffee or anything
> similar. (03-29-05, organica,
> http://www.veggieboards.com/boards/archive/index.php/t-34800-p-10.html)
>
> But people have always told me that to work on feel-good-warm-fuzzy
> things you have to sling coffee creamer and cat food the other 364 days
> of the year. (March 14 , 2006, T,
> http://shyoot.blogspot.com/2006/03/there-were-parts-of-advertising-i.html)
>
> Jargon:
> It's no shame, man, to work for a livin'. I'd rather sling coffee for
> Starbucks than sling verbs for a few newspapers I could name 
. (May 21,
> 2007, Disgruntled Tool-Room Clerk,
> http://www.davecopeland.com/index.php/2007/05/21/day-one-of-my-starving-artist-phase/)
>
> BB
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


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All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Sam'l Clemens

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