bone-smuggler

[Dave Wilton]

I just watched the first season. (Having spent my summers working on the
Seaside Heights boardwalk, it was an exercise in nostalgia.) I don't recall
"bone-smuggler" being used on the show.

In the first season (I can't speak to the second). Snooki is portrayed as a
daffy, flirtatious, party-girl who gets very drunk and then hits up on a lot
of guys, always unsuccessfully. Perhaps because her chubby cuteness and
immaturity engender a protective big brother vibe among men in their
twenties, her liaisons never progress beyond "hooking up," which in the
context of the show means necking and perhaps some petting. Because she
never actually has sex during the course of the season, most of the
definitions in Urban Dictionary don't fit. The "transvestite" sense of
"bone-smuggler" may be the one intended by _Mad_, although that is rather
cruel and not particularly apt (at least not without seeing the picture in
question; paparazzi photos can be very unflattering).

_Jersey Shore_ has quite a few nuggets of slang. As mentioned, "hook up" has
a specific and consistent meaning on the show. "Creeping" means being on the
prowl for women. My personal favorite, the regionalism "benny," makes an
appearance when a local insults the TV personalities by calling them that.
And of course there is the much discussed "Guido" and "Guidette."


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
Jonathan Lighter
Sent: Sunday, January 02, 2011 9:24 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: bone-smuggler

UrbanDictionary has a number of defs. from 2003 for those who wish to pursue
the matter. See also "bone-snuggling."

Not being a watcher of _Jersey Shore_, I can't be sure precisely what _Mad_
magazine has in mind here:

2010 _Mad_ (Oct.) 40: Here's a picture we dug up of _Jersey Shore_
bone-smuggler Snooki.

That's my first encounter with the term.  The current editorial standards of
_Mad_, BTW, are far raunchier than the elderly may recall. Think _National
Lampoon_ instead.

The October _Mad_ cover featured the BP oil leak. The price of the issue
was "$5.99 CRUDE!"

Not "25c CHEAP!" which is how I remember it.

JL

--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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