More Futurama

[Wilson Gray]

Hermes:

Hermes:

"That's *Fry* you're _mackin' on_!"


HDAS:

mack v.  3. Black E. to French-kiss; kiss passionately. 1978.
1993….mac on v….kiss


Exactly. Unfortunately, I can supply only an IME. In StL ca. 1948-,
the canonical form was _mack *on*_ and "to French-kiss" was the only
meaning. There was no nominal use, beyond _put the mack on_, _put a
macking on_ "engage in a bout of French-kissing."

My intuition has always been that this word is derived from _smack_ -
_mack_ in (BE only?) baby-talk -  "kiss."  This has the same worth, of
course, as my other intuitions, e.g. that the word "skank(y)" should
be spelled _skink(y)_ and so pronounced by white people, just as they
spell and say "hinky, stink(y)" and not "hanky, stank(y)." (Yes, we
*did* laugh about the name of Eddie *Stanky*, a formerly-storied
baseball player of what is now yore.)

The 1993 cite is from Los Angeles, where Phil LaMarr - "UBS Guy" on
MadTV - the actor who voices Hermes, grew up.

--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org