bogart (v.)

[Wilson Gray]

1966?! Whoa! Impressive. That's almost as early, ca.1964, as I first
heard it on the street in Los Angeles. FWIW, it was also pronounced
"bogard" ['bou "gard / 'bou "ga:d] by young guys who weren't familiar
with Humphrey Bogart. Los Angeles BE is/was? *much* more r-ful than
the Saint Louis version, to the extent that some local blacks even
said "nigger" (*very* creepy to my ears!), the same as white standard
speakers, as opposed to the usual BE "nigguh, nigga," etc., however
you want to spell it in eye-dialect.

FWIW, at that time in that place, to "bogart" someone was to force
oneself on someone, to bully, to intimidate, to back someone down, to
"make [someone] unball [his] fists," as Richard Pryor once expressed
it. Basically, to make someone chicken out by implied threat or even
by mere force of personality. A known bad motherfucker could bogart a
weaker personality merely by asking, "Say what?" in a pleasant,
non-threatening tone of voice.

-Wilson

On 2/11/08, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: bogart (v.)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 2/11/2008 01:44 PM, Gregory McNamee wrote:
> >I don't have the beginning of your thread, Joel, so this may already
> >have been mentioned, but (IIRC) "bogart" came into widespread use
> >after the movie Easy Rider appeared in 1969,
> >with its soundtrack song
> >by the Fraternity of Man, "Don't Bogart That Joint":
> >
> >Don't bogart that joint my friend
> >Pass it over to me
>
> For this sense (2. trans. orig. and chiefly U.S. To appropriate (a
> marijuana cigarette) greedily or selfishly) the on-line OED's
> earliest cite is exactly the above.  For sense 1, OED has 1966.  But
> I think neither is quite the same as Natalie Angier's example.
>
> Joel
>
>
> >Don't bogart that joint my friend
> >Pass it over to me
> >
> >Roll another one
> >Just like the other one
> >You've been holding on to it
> >And I sure will like a hit
> >
> >[chorus]
> >
> >Roll another one
> >Just like the other one
> >That one's burned to the end
> >Come on and be a real friend
> >
> >[chorus]
> >
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>
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--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
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-----
                                              -Sam'l Clemens

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