Follow-up on sluff - play hooky, slack off (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill AMRDEC]

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

OED has sluff (v) in a card-playing sense back to 1959.


Wilson, I'd have thought you would have read this:

Robert A. Heinlein, _Farnham's Freehold_ p. 5
"She admired the way he squeezed out the last trick, of a contract in which she had forced them too high, by having the boldness to sluff an ace."
This from the Baen Books 2001 edition, but I'm sure that the quote can be found in the original 1964 edition.



>
> >
> > On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 9:51 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net>
> wrote:
> >> 1978 Â  Â Detroit Free Press 2 Apr. 19 c/3 Â  East
> >> is now squeezed in the red suitsè˙∆e must either
> >> give up a trick to the jack of hearts or
> >
> > _sluff_
> >
> >> two diamonds, which sets up declarer's third diamond.
> >>
> >
> > So, _sluff_ in the sense of "discard" in a card game *isn't* only a
> BE thing!
> >
> > I never cease to be amazed by the impenetrability of the Cotton
> > Curtain. You really *do* never know!
>
> I must have learned that from my grandmother, since she was the one we
> usually played hearts and other card games with. She was white and born
> in Seattle in 1912 or 1913.
>
> As a kid, I understood this to mean something like "be sneaky and get
> rid of the card" since the pass at the start of the game allows players
> to set themselves up to be able to sluff.
>
> Benjamin Barrett
> Seattle, WA
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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