Still More Bad Girl Talk

[Jonathan Lighter]

And more. Unfortunately there may be only one more episode this season.

"My gaydar is up, and it's never wrong, and _you're_ a lesbian!"  (Said by a
lesbian.)

"The realest girls in this house are me and Erica."  (Extremely common for
decades, but hard to place in the OED schema. Cf. 11a  "Sincere,
straightforward, honest. Obs." but with nothing since 1705.  My def., for
what it's worth, might be "(Of persons) free of pretension or affectation
and candidly sincere in social relationships."  That's very close to 11c
"Free from nonsense, affectation, or pretence; genuine. Also more generally:
aware of, or in touch with, real life; down-to-earth," but I sense a
difference, if only because the word - again as applied to persons - has
been so common since the '60s.  However, if you ask "So what?"  I'm not sure
I have a good comeback.)

"We're obviously the top dogs. Don't breathe my air. Don't be anywhere near
me."  (Many thousands of RGs for "Don't breathe my air!" perhaps no earlier
than 2005.)

"Christina's stupid ass was just swingin' at Leah's balls!" ("Ass" and
"balls" are merely emphatic forms; see HDAS. Christina tried repeatedly to
strike Leah. Said by lesbian.)

"I have a *huge* set of balls." (A store of self-assurance. Said by
lesbian.)

"I'm excited, dog!" (Female to female; HDAS stupidly restricts this use of
"dog" to masculine address.)

When the Bad Girls aren't going out to night clubs to get laid, or, on
occasion, laying each other, they worry a good deal about who's "weak" (see
last installment) and who's "mentally strong."  Each seems to think she's
"mentally strong," but the others usually think she's "weak." The
"strong" torment and try to drive out the "weak." It usually works. In
general outline, the show is probably as scripted as any WWE match, but I
like to think individual affect and presentations of self are genuine.

It makes me extra glad I don't know any of these nuts personally.

JL

On Sun, Oct 3, 2010 at 9:19 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Still More Bad Girl Talk
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 7:31 PM -0400 10/3/10, Wilson Gray wrote:
> >  > "I would not screw Danielle with a homeless man's penis!" ? (Lady
> >speaking.)
> >
> >We used to say,
> >
> >"I wouldn't fuck that skink with *your* dick!"
> >
> >This was quite popular, because it not only downs the the third
> >person, but it also jones with the second person. And, if he wasn't
> >quick enough on his mental feet to notice that, then he would be
> >allowing himself to be fucked over.
> >
>
> Autobiographical note:
> I first heard this, in the form of "I wouldn't screw her with
> *yours*" or the slightly less inscrutably euphemistic "I wouldn't
> fuck/screw her with *your* dick", in the summer of 1971 when I was
> teaching a seminar on negation at the California summer program in
> linguistics at the UC Santa Cruz.  It was volunteered as a more
> colorful example of negative polarity item than the standard ones I'd
> been citing ("any", "ever", "sleep a wink", "care to", "budge",
> "need", etc.).  But I confess I had to have it explained to me--the
> logic of "I wouldn't touch him with a ten-foot pole" I could
> understand, but not that of the above, at least not until it was
> patiently deconstructed for my edification...
>
> LH
>
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