bogart (v.)

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

I remember the verb "bogart" from the mid-1950s,when it meant 'hold a 
cigarette in one's mouth in such a way as to get the end wet." I guess it would be a 
natural progression from that meaning to one in which one kept the joint too 
long. 

Supposedly, the term arose because the actor had rather thick lips.

I was grateful for--hence particularly aware of--this use of "bogart" because 
I could use it instead of another (somewhat more common) term for the same 
thing, "nigger lip," which I personally avoided (as I did most "rough" speech, 
being a cryptosissy). An ugly phrase to modern ears, though in the mostly white 
high school I went to, users were largely unaware that it might be deeply 
offensive, and would have naively been surprised if anyone had challenged them on 
it.


In a message dated 2/11/08 7:22:07 PM, wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM writes:


> HDAS also has a '66, from novelist Malcolm Braly's _On the Yard_, a book 
> based on a few years he'd spent in San Quentin ca1960.
> 
>   JL
> Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>   ---------------------- Information from the mail header 
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Wilson Gray
> Subject: Re: bogart (v.)
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> --
> 
> 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 wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header 
> -----------------------
> > Sender: American Dialect Society
> > Poster: "Joel S. Berson"
> > 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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> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -----
> -Sam'l Clemens
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