More Futurama

[Sissy SoFunk]

I've always used (and heard) "mack/macking on" to mean hitting on or
flirting with, including a few portmanteaus I've come across (for instance,
when people, generally young men, use their involvement in politics to pick
up dates, we called them 'macktivists').  I can also find "macking" defined
as pimping in the 1971 'Black Slang: A Dictionary of Afro-American Talk".
 All clearly sexual in nature, but when did the shift happen?  I can't find
much recorded usage before the mid 90s.


On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 9:48 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

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> 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
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