Tramp Stamp

[John Spartz]

On Showtime's _Weeds_ Monday night, Doug Wilson (one of the
characters) referred to that type of tattoo, saying, "check out the
'bitch badge' or is it 'tramp stamp.'" the show is set in surburban LA.

--John
__________________________
John M. Spartz, Ph.D.
English Language & Linguistics
Purdue University
jspartz at purdue.edu

On Jul 23, 2008, at 12:32 PM, Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Tramp Stamp
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> ---
> ---
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>
> Synonymous (perhaps distinctively Southern?) is "trash patch." I've
> been hearing that for at least 3 or 4 years. It's absent from
> UrbanDictionary.com. Most of Google's 6,000+ instances of the
> collocation represent unrelated uses.
>
> --Charlie
> _____________________________________________________________
>
> ---- Original message ----
>> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:38:56 -0400
>> From: "Baker, John" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM>
>> Subject: Tramp Stamp
>>
>>       How old is "tramp stamp," the current term for those popular
>> tattoos at the base of a woman's back?  The earliest I see is
>> 8/19/2004 from the San Francisco Chronicle (Westlaw):  In the
>> Central Valley, writes Lisa Hayes of Modesto, they call that tattoo
>> at the base of a woman's spine a "tramp stamp."
>>
>>       That seems rather late, though.
>>
>>
>> John Baker
>
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