A book that repays rereading

[George Thompson]

I am about finishing the newest biography of Louis Armstrong -- "Pops" is the title.  In discussing the LP Armstrong made in the mid 1950s called Ambassador Satch, the author describes the album cover, a photo of Louis , looking smug in a diplomat's cutaway and carrying a briefcase.  Armstrong explained that the reason he was looking so pleased was that he had just come from seeing his supplier of marihuana, and had a half pound of prime mutha in the briefcase.

I didn't recognize "mutha", so I hastened to vol. 2 of HDAS -- where I found it, under mootha.

I'd read HDAS II with profit and delight when it first came out, but it seems that it didn't completely regisister.

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: Friday, June 25, 2010 11:17 am
Subject: Re: I guaran-god-damn-tee it
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU

> In HDAS if anybody cares. See also entries on _damn_, _fricking_,
> _frigging_, _fucking_, and _bloody_.
>
> Some may also enjoy _irregoddamnless_.
>
> JL
>
> On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 6:42 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: I guaran-god-damn-tee it
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > The first such that I ever heard was,
> >
> > "Gimme a hammer, some-motherfuckin'-body!"
> >
> > spoken very much aloud by class lout, Alfred Barnes, 13, in the midst
> > of shop class.
> >
> > At the time - in 1949, when I was in the eighth grade - I thought that
> > it was the funniest thing that I had ever heard. Indeed, I thought so
> > for many dekkids. That someone should split apart a word like
> > _somebody_ and then insert an obscenity into the gap... Well, it was
> > just too much for me. I cracked up over it for years.
> >
> > -Wilson
> >
> > On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 2:32 PM, Paul Frank <paulfrank at post.harvard.edu>
> > wrote:
> > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > > Poster:       Paul Frank <paulfrank at POST.HARVARD.EDU>
> > > Subject:      I guaran-god-damn-tee it
> > >
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >
> > > I need to get out more. Here's an example of tmesis I hadn't come
> across
> > before:
> > >
> > > "You're gonna run across some guys out there who don't like me, I
> > > guaran-dog-damn-tee it, but at the same time I bet there's not one
> of
> > > 'em that would say, 'I wouldn't take him in a firefight.' And that's
> > > what I'm looking for."
> > >
> > > Sebastian Junger, War, Kindle Edition, 2010, 60% into the book.
> > >
> > > Paul
> > >
> > > Paul Frank
> > > Translator
> > > German, French, Italian > English
> > > Rue du Midi 1, Aigle, Switzerland
> > > paulfrank at post.harvard.edu
> > >
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > -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
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> >  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."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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