Bogarting

[Wilson Gray]

I agree entirely with your first sentence. However, my use of the term
is based on 'Sixties black street slang, in which the term was clealy
based upon Bogart's reputation as a "bad mothafucka" and not on the
way he smoked his cigarettes and had nothing to do with smoking
marijuana. "To bogart" was a synonym of "to gorilla." Smoking weed is
a lot less common among the colored than most white people believe. I
was 32 before I first "went for that shit."

-Wilson

On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 7:10 AM, Ron Silliman<silliman at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Ron Silliman <silliman at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Bogarting
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Bogarting is indeed a reference to Humphrey Bogart. It refers to the
> practice of holding on tight to a marijuana cigarette (the way Bogart, more
> in films like Maltese Falcon than Casablanca, would hold onto his
> cigarettes). Hence, a failure to share what should be passed around...
>
> Ron Silliman
>
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--
-Wilson
–––
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.
-----
-Mark Twain

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