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

[Gordon, Matthew J.]

Around this same time, there was also mention of "Ladue lockjaw" in reference to the St. Louis accent, particularly the "cord-card merger." Ladue is one of the tony STL suburbs. The phrase was used in at least one newspaper discussion; I don't have a citation, but I came across it in an MA thesis that I have somewhere. I can track it down, if you're interested, Ben.

I didn't understand why the author chose Ladue for this label since the linguistic features in question are not associated with upper-class speech, but now I see it was probably on the alliterative model of the NY examples.

-Matt Gordon
________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Ben Zimmer [bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU]
Sent: Sunday, June 12, 2011 6:37 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.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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