gin game

[Jonathan Lighter]

If the handwriting is scrawly enough, it may be "con game," which sounds a
little weird in the context now but I think didn't in 1909.

JL

On Fri, Jan 8, 2010 at 4:51 PM, George Thompson <george.thompson at nyu.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
> Subject:      gin game
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> From an article in today's NYTimes, section C, p. 33, headlined "Navy Yard
> 'Treasures'", about an archive and museum at the (former) Brooklyn Navy
> Yard.
>
> "The archive has also received a 1909 postcard showing the yard paymaster's
> house; on the back an enraged shipyard worker scrawled to his girlfriend,
> "What kind of a gin game you giving me, taking me for a damn fool?""
>
> not in HDAS; app. not in OED; not in Chambers Slang Dictionary.
>
> GAT
>
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
>
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