bogart

[Wilson Gray]

If the second definition is valid for current BE-speakers, it's yet
another horrifying example of the effects of desegregation. I know
only the first definition, popular '60's Los Angeles. From the time
that I first heard it, I've always attributed its origin to the name
and influence of Humphrey Bogart, in lock-step with M-W. Some younger
BE-speakers, having missed out on the Bogart era, were very early
trending toward the "corrected" pronunciation, "bogard," since they
were familiar with name of the late British actor, Dirk Bogaard. My
WAG is that this was motivated by Bogaard's "bad" first name,
misinterpreted as being the same as "dirk," still alive in Southern,
well, Texas, BE with the meaning, "a large sheath-knife or hunting
knife," such as the one borne by Tarzan.

Oddly, on the (relative) North, i.e. Saint Louis, Tarzan carried a
"Bowie knife."

-Wilson

On Fri, Jul 18, 2008 at 7:23 AM, David A. Daniel <dad at pokerwiz.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "David A. Daniel" <dad at POKERWIZ.COM>
> Subject:      bogart
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> There was a discussion here some time ago about "bogart". Happens it is
> today's word of the day from M-W. Thought I would share, fwiw.
> bogart
> verb
> Meaning
> 1 : bully, intimidate
> *2 : to use or consume without sharing
> Example Sentence
> Three of the older girls bogarted the ice cream, ignoring the other campers'
> pleas for them to share.
> Did you know?
> The legendary film actor Humphrey Bogart was known for playing a range of
> tough characters in a series of films throughout the 1940s and 1950s,
> including The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, and The African Queen. The men he
> portrayed often possessed a cool, hardened exterior that occasionally let
> forth a suggestion of romantic or idealistic sentimentality. Bogart also had
> a unique method of smoking cigarettes in these pictures - letting the butt
> dangle from his mouth without removing it until it was almost entirely
> consumed. It is believed that this habit inspired the current meaning of
> "bogart," which was once limited to the phrase "Don't bogart that joint
> [marijuana cigarette]," as popularized by a song on the soundtrack to the
> film Easy Rider, among other things. Today "bogart" can be applied to
> hogging almost anything.
>
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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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