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

[Dan Goncharoff]

I decided to search the official magazine of the lockjaw crowd, The New
Yorker.

I found  the phrase "lockjaw euphemism' -- "("Cunningham lives alone," says
Synopsis, "and hires women regularly to function with him," which is the
most striking piece of lockjaw euphemism since last Tuesday.)" -- June 7,
1969

Nothing earlier.
DanG


On Sun, Jun 12, 2011 at 11:51 AM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Lockjaw: Locust Valley (1965), Long Island (1972),
> Larchmont
>              (1973)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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/
> > >
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> > >
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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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