RE "Shoot beaver"?
Laurence Horn
laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Wed Nov 10 14:48:54 UTC 2010
At 8:34 AM -0500 11/10/10, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>Former Yankee pitcher Jim Bouton achieved a _success de scandale_ in 1969-70
>when he reported in his memoir, _Ball Four_, that certain Yankee greats
>would prowl under the stands trying to "shoot beaver."
>
>HDAS has 1974 for female "shooters," 1969 for the male kind.
>
>JL
I associate it with the scene in "Basic Instinct", a movie about 20
years old (and hence a classic of the silver screen) in which murder
suspect Sharon Stone, in a short white dress, uncrosses her legs
across from her interrogator Michael Douglas. Can't recall if she
was described as shooting beaver at the time, or only afterward.
LH
>
> On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 8:10 AM, Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster: Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
>> Subject: RE "Shoot beaver"?
>>
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> It is my impression that the term "shooting beaver" could also (by a sort
>> of projection?) refer to the lascivious glimpsing of accidentally exposed
>> female crotches ("beavers")--as when a woman is seen sitting carelessly in a
>> dress or skirt. A common regional variant (in eastern Texas in the 1960s)
>> was "shooting squirrel."
>>
>> --Charlie
>>
>> ________________________________________
>> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Eric
>> Nielsen [ericbarnak at GMAIL.COM]
>> Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 2010 1:20
>>
>>AM-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Exposing their genitals. Anterior version of mooning. In my experience.
>>
>> Eric
>>
>> On Tue, Nov 9, 2010 at 11:49 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: "Shoot beaver"?
>> >
>> >
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
>> ------
>> >
>> > Does anyone know the slang-meaning of this?
>>
>> .....the girls in her class "shooting beaver" at the boys.
>>
>> --
>> -Wilson
>> =96=96=96
>> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"=96=96a strange complaint to
>> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>> =96Mark Twain
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> 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
More information about the Ads-l
mailing list