Possible antedating of uptalk

[Jim Parish]

David A. Daniel wrote:
> Hmmm. From Alley Oop lyrics: "Cuz he's a mean motah scootah and a bad
> go-gettah." Motah scootah must be a euphemism, yes? But the first five pages
> of Google hits only refer to the song (except one tweet as
> #codenameforbadpeople which didn't lead anywhere) so it apparently is not
> something that people in general ran/run around calling each other
> euphemistically. Anyone?
My brother (b. 1946, Army brat, 20-year Navy man) uses "motor-scooter"
(definitely rhotic) euphemistically, but as far as I recall he only uses
it as an expletive, not as an insult.

Jim Parish

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