feminine name: "Stuart"

[Bill Palmer]

As a Norfolkian, I hasten to add there is no Norfolk High School (or hasn't
been since about 1910), and the cheer referred to was one usually recited by
sailors stationed there, whose social life wasn't what they had hoped for.
Up 'til fairly recently, Norfolk was known in the Navy circles as "Shit
City" for the disdain in which Navy people were regarded.  Not the case
these days.

Bill Palmer

----- Original Message -----
From: "Wilson Gray" <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Monday, August 24, 2009 10:45 PM
Subject: Re: feminine name: "Stuart"


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
> header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: feminine name: "Stuart"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Back in the '70's, a then-roommate of mine had a girlfriend named Mary
> Stuart [Surname], who was called "Stuart."
> I also had an upstairs neighbor named Mary Mason [Surname] who called
> herself "Mason." Mason was a legend in her own time in our apartment
> becaus=
> e
> she would shamelessly come knocking on our door to "borrow" a few squares
> o=
> f
> toilet paper, when she needed to drop a deuce. True, the nearest Star
> Marke=
> t
> was lost in the
> downhill-cross-the-railroad-tracks-recross-the-railroad-then-back-uphill
> distance in Cambridge (we lived in Somerville) and who wants to be
> bothered
> with that hassle? So, really, one has to admire her 'nadsy practicality,
> under the circumstances. But, somehow, it was so, well, *unladylike*! "
> 'Po=
> n
> my word!" as my mother would say.
>
> Speaking of cheers, Stuart had gone to Norfolk (VA) High School and
> claimed
> that her school had a cheer that went,
>
> We don't drink!
> We don't smoke!
> NOR-FOLK!
>
> I've since met other Norfolkers who have assured me that Stuart wasn't
> just
> pulling our Northern legs. There really is such a cheer.
>
> -Wilson
>
> On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 10:07 PM, Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      feminine name: "Stuart"
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> ------
>>
>> One of Larry King's guests tonight was named Stuart Brazell.
>>
>> She's pretty popular on the Web:
>>
>> http://www.pochepictures.com/stuartinterview.html
>>
>> She told Larry that "Stuart" was her middle name, but she's been using it
>> as
>> her everyday forename since she was little.
>>
>> JL
>>
>>
>>
>> "There You Go Again...Using Reason on the Planet of the Duck-Billed
>> Platypus"
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>
> --=20
> -Wilson
> =96=96=96
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
> com=
> e
> from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -----
> -Mark Twain
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org