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

[Jonathan Lighter]

What the hell is "Manhattan Pentameter"?

IAC, I am delighted to learn that I've been speaking blank verse all my
life....

Additional two cents: I'm very skeptical of Espy's attribution of the phrase
"Larchmont lockjaw" to the "early 1930s."  It simply does not have a '30s
feel - and the 40-year lag in documentation would be hard to explain for so
colorful a language-related term.

On the other hand, hardly anyone uses any of these phrases; so if their
currency had been limited to a bare handful of locals, they could go back
indefinitely.

JL
On Sun, Jun 12, 2011 at 8:55 AM, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Lockjaw: Locust Valley (1965), Long Island (1972),
> Larchmont
>              (1973)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > 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/
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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