"spoofy" and "shimming" in Utah, 1919

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Sun Mar 6 21:07:06 UTC 2011


> Why beat around the bush?

Because HDAS did the job so much better?

JL

On Sun, Mar 6, 2011 at 3:53 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "spoofy" and "shimming" in Utah, 1919
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Speaking of jolly:
>
> >  III. 7. a. Amorous; amatory; wanton, lustful.
> >  b. Of animals: In heat. Obs. exc. dial.
>
> Oddly enough, no "jolly" in this sense for noun. Jolly n.4 comes the
> closest, although it overlaps other adjective meanings:
>
> > colloq.  Short for jollification n.; so, a thrill of enjoyment or
> > excitement, as in phr. *to get one's jollies*. Also jollyo, jolly-up.
> > Cf. jollo n.
>
> Cassell's Dict. of Slang is much more direct:
>
> > orgasm
>
> A simple search for "jollies off" shows a lot of "getting jollies off"
> in the latter sense and very little in the former. Why beat around the
> bush?
>
>     VS-)
>
>
> On 3/6/2011 3:35 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
> > ...
> > The latter seems to be nearly identical to some British uses of
> > "jolly" (but this one shows up much earlier).
>
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