"the apocryphal HDAS III"

Mon Aug 2 16:12:15 UTC 2010

From: "George Thompson" <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>

<<
This raises a very galling point: how long do we have to wait for Oxford
University Press to bring out the final volumes of HDAS?
>>

Yeah, concur.  Jonathon Green's 3 volume fully-cited dictionary is due out
this September, which will make life lots better, but still won't fully fill
the place of the unpublished bits of Jon's HDAS.

...  SNIP

<<
Slang is a very useful indication of thought and habits, but it's hard to
study, without a source like HDAS.  10 years ago or so, Gerry Cohen kindly
published a collection of prize-fighting slang I had gathered from NYC
newspapers, 1817-1835.  This included a few absolute antedatings of the
in-print OED which if they hold up will make the revised OED, but otherwise
I expect them to wind up on the copy-hook.  But the collection was
interesting because it showed that the fad for prize-fighting among raffish
English noblemen passed very quickly to the United States, despite the War
of 1812 and the embargo that preceded it.  Other aspects of cultural and
social history can be studied in an extensive collection of dated slang
material
>>

Does this link into Piers Egan's material in _Boxiana_ at all?  This would
be coming out in about 1812 onwards in magazines, and later in (various)
book forms.  Julie Coleman has Matsell drawing on the 1811 revision of Grose
for the _Vocabulum_, but I've always sorta thought he actually used Egan's
1823 version.  Insofar as that and the 1811 edition can be told apart.

I've also, belatedly, just discovered the existence of David W. Maurer, who
seems to have published extensively on American slang from the early 30s on.
Know his work at all?  I've flagged it to look at whenever I next get near a
decent library, and ordered _The Big Con_, the only one of his books going
at a price inside my range.

> The OUP needs to stop sitting on the material for HDAS III & IV and
> produce them, or I will start remembering it in my bed-time curses, along
> with the despised Bertelsmann House.
>
> What can the collective might of ADS-L do to bring this about -- in
> addition to our collective bed-time curses, of course

I'll see if I can polish up a gaelic curse or two to have in readiness if
necessary.

Robin

> GAT
>
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Date: Monday, August 2, 2010 7:44 am
> Subject: Re: Submariner [was "thousand-yard stare"] (UNCLASSIFIED)
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
>> George, see the apocryphal HDAS III.  For some reason in the U.S. it's
>> "piss" that the designee cannot pour from the boot.  Even if the boot
>> has a
>> instructions *and* a spout.
>>
>> Just a cultural thing, I guess.
>>
>> JL
>>
>> On Sun, Aug 1, 2010 at 10:38 PM, George Thompson
>> <george.thompson at nyu.edu>wrote:
>>
>> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> > -----------------------
>> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > Poster:       George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
>> > Subject:      Re: Submariner [was "thousand-yard stare"] (UNCLASSIFIED)
>> >
>> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >
>> > There is a put-down that I think I saw in Brendan Behan's Borstal
>> Boy, that
>> > someone was too dumb to pour sand out of a boot, even if the
>> > instructions
>> > were printed on the heel.
>> >
>> > GAT
>> >
>> > George A. Thompson
>> > Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
>> > Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
>> >
>> > ----- Original Message -----
>> > From: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>> > Date: Sunday, August 1, 2010 8:56 pm
>> > Subject: Re: Submariner [was "thousand-yard stare"] (UNCLASSIFIED)
>> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> >
>> > > At 8:38 PM -0400 8/1/10, Mark Mandel wrote:
>> > > >I have a pair of Dockers brand pants, less than a year old, that
>> have
>> > > "ONE
>> > > >LEG AT A TIME" printed in red letters an inch high on the inside
>> of the
>> > > >waistband, right front.
>> > > >
>> > > >m a m
>> > >
>> > > Not quite rising to the level of the apocryphal Coke bottles in (pick
>> > > a country) with the legend on the bottom reading "OPEN OTHER END",
>> > > but...
>> > >
>> > > LH
>> > >
>> > > >
>> > > >On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 3:59 PM, Dave Wilton <dave at wilton.net>
>> > > >wrote:
>> > > >
>> > > >>  I remember a manual for US Army chemical officers (officers, not
>> > enlisted)
>> > > >>  that detailed all the tasks that a chemical officer needed to
>> > > know. The one
>> > > >>  for donning chemical protective gear included instructions
>> such as
>> > > "put on
>> > > >>  pants one leg at a time, fly facing front." The only
>> > > >> non-intuitive
>> > > step in
>> > > >>  the task that actually required some instruction was lacing the
>> > chemical
>> > > >>  protective overboots--which were not like standard boots--and
>> the
>> > > >>  instruction for that was simply "lace boots."
>> > > >>
>> > > >>  I'm convinced it was written by a captain who had been passed
>> over
>> > > for
>> > > >>  promotion and was exacting a bit of revenge.
>> > > >>
>> > > >
>> > > >------------------------------------------------------------
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>> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
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>> >
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
>> truth."
>>
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>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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