Strokin' (Was: Re: WOTY)

[Wilson Gray]

Is it a song by Clarence Carter that contains the verse:

"Watch me do my stroke one time:
"Unh!
"Watch me do my stroke two times:
"Unh! Unh!
"Watch me do my stroke three times:
"Unh! Unh! Unh!
"Different strokes
"For different folks"

That's the first and only recorded version that I've actually heard
with my own ears. I've always assumed that it referred to sex. But,
that's only my assumption and I'm not interested in arguing the point.
In ordinary speech, the phrase is/was? clipped to "Different strokes."

Re: "stroke books"; that's what the person that I heard say the phrase
used them for.

-Wilson

-Wilson





On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 6:05 AM, LanDi Liu <strangeguitars at gmail.com> wrote:
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>  Poster:       LanDi Liu <strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM>
>
> Subject:      Re: Strokin' (Was: Re: WOTY)
>  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>  So is Clarence Carter the first reference we have to using it for
>  "normal" sex?  If someone told me he was stroking a girl, I would take
>  it to mean he was petting her.
>
>  Wilson -- I would guess "stroke books" are so called because they are
>  books to stroke off to.
>
>  Randy
>
>
>
>  On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 4:21 AM, Benjamin Zimmer
>  <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
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>  >  Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
>  >
>  > Subject:      Re: Strokin' (Was: Re: WOTY)
>  >  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  >
>  >
>  > On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 1:28 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>  >  >
>  >  > IIRC, someone here dated the saying to Mohammed Ali in 1965. He could
>  >  > be asked what he meant by "strokes," I reckon.
>  >
>  >  Barry Popik found it used by Ali (then Cassius Clay) in a 1966 UPI report:
>  >
>  >  -----
>  >  http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0406D&L=ADS-L&P=R938
>  >  Great Bend Daily Tribune   Friday, November 11, 1966 Great Bend, Kansas
>  >  Pg. 6, col. 8:
>  >    HOUSTON (UPI)-- (...)
>  >    But back to a la Bob Hope.  Clay, the comedian, said:
>  >    --"I don't have any punch.  I just hit a man so many times he wished I had
>  >  a punch."
>  >    --On knockout punches in the Liston, Floyd Patterson and Karl Mildenberger
>  >  fights:  "I bot (got?--ed.) different strokes for different folks."
>  >  -----
>  >
>  >  Interestingly, the AP account gives a rather different context:
>  >
>  >  -----
>  >  _Oakland Tribune_, Nov. 11, 1966, p. 55, col. 7
>  >  Clay didn't look good in final sparring sessions.
>  >  He pursued his lip battle with [Cleveland] Williams' manager, Hugh
>  >  Benbow, and the Houston oilman-rancher was included in the champion's
>  >  latest verse:
>  >  "You'll never know what I'm going to do,
>  >  "It could be over in two.
>  >  "Until Hugh Benbow came alive,
>  >  "I was thinking about five."
>  >  The champion had another one:
>  >  "I believe in hitting,
>  >  "And running away,
>  >  "And living to fight
>  >  "Another day."
>  >  Clay was almost knocked down by sparmate Jimmy Ellis Thursday. He
>  >  scolded a heckler "for breaking my concentration."
>  >  As an afterthought, he added another couplet:
>  >  "You know, different strokes for different folks."
>  >  -----
>  >
>  >
>  >  --Ben Zimmer
>  >
>  >
>  >
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>
> --
>  Randy Alexander
>  Jilin City, China
>
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