bone-smuggler

[Laurence Horn]

At 3:10 PM -0500 1/2/11, Dave Wilton wrote:
>"Hook up" in the context of _Jersey Shore_ isn't exactly innocent. Some of
>the "hooking up" gets pretty hot and heavy, but stops short of oral or
>penetrative sex. I noticed the usage on the show precisely because the term
>can be ambiguous, but on the show it is used very consistently and I found
>that remarkable.

The ambiguity, or underspecification, has been around for awhile, at
least beyond Jersey's shores.  This exchange (mentioned in an earlier
thread or two on this topic) was reported by a Yale undergraduate in
a class of mine in 1992:

A:  Did you hook up?
B:  Yeah, we hooked up.
A:  Did you hook UP hook up?
B:  No, we just hooked up hooked up.

LH

>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
>Jonathan Lighter
>Sent: Sunday, January 02, 2011 2:38 PM
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject: Re: bone-smuggler
>
>What makes Mad's use especially enigmatic is that its context is a satire of
>irresponsible Internet gossip sites.
>
>My guess is that it merely implies sexual promiscuity. "Transvestite"
>doesn't seem apt here at all.
>
>BTW, HDAS has the innocent sense of "hook up"  from the '80s or early '90s,
>depending on how closely you want to define it. Parents: It isn't always
>easy to tell just which nuance is intended.
>
>JL
>
>On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 1:41 PM, Dave Wilton <dave at wilton.net> wrote:
>
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>  -----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       Dave Wilton <dave at WILTON.NET>
>>  Subject:      Re: bone-smuggler
>>
>>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>---
>>
>>  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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>
>
>
>--
>"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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