Lockjaw: Locust Valley (1965), Long Island (1972), Larchmont (1973)

[Dan Goncharoff]

I would have expected this to be older.

>From  A William Safire article on Locust Valley lockjaw in 1987:
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/01/18/magazine/on-language.html?scp=1&sq=lockjaw&st=cse

Willard Espy, the wordsman whose most recent book is ''Words to Rhyme With:
A Rhyming Dictionary,'' recalls, ''In the early 1930's, the expression
Larchmont lockjaw was generally restricted to certain upper-class females
from Westchester County, and the affliction was presumably the fault of the
schools they attended.''

DanG


On Sun, Jun 12, 2011 at 7:37 AM, Ben Zimmer
<bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Lockjaw: Locust Valley (1965), Long Island (1972), Larchmont
>              (1973)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> When I looked into these expressions in 2005, I found "Locust Valley
> lockjaw" from 1970, "Long Island lockjaw" from 1977, and "Larchmont
> lockjaw" from 1986:
>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0502A&L=ADS-L&P=R4067
>
> Earlier cites from Google Books (snippet view, but they all look legit):
>
> * Locust Valley lockjaw
> Noel Parmentel, "John Lindsay - Less Than Meets the Eye," _Esquire_,
> Oct. 1965, p. 156
> He is as oblivious to the high gloss as he is to the Locust Valley
> Lockjaw spoken by so many of his peers.
>
> * Long Island lockjaw
> Hercules Molloy, _Oedipus in Disneyland_, 1972, p. 66
> He could detect Long Island Lockjaw across the room and distinguish it
> instantly from Manhattan Pentameter (an onomatopoeia).
>
> * Larchmont lockjaw
> Marcia Seligson, _The Eternal Bliss Machine: America's Way of
> Wedding_, 1973, p. 185
> But the voice changes that image, with a uniquely cultivated way of
> speaking that someone once labeled "Larchmont Lockjaw" because it
> emerges from a mouth that looks to be frozen into an unmoving smile
> and teeth that seem clenched together for dear life.
>
>
> --bgz
>
> --
> Ben Zimmer
> http://benzimmer.com/
>
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