'meg", verb of unknown meaning, 1930

Wed Mar 26 21:25:09 UTC 2014

Here are some instances of megged and megging. Seems to be Variety
showbiz lingo based on abbreviation. Jesse indicates it's from
megaphone.

I searched for megged/megging instead of meg. Search for the three
letter "meg" will yield more false-positive matches because of OCR
errors.

George Sidney Year's Top $ Director Pair of pix megged by Metro's
George Sidney led the productions of all other Hollywood directors
last year in the coin they garnered at the boxofRce.
Published Date: February 8th, 1949

Sekely has turned in a beautiful megging job. Paul Henreid will win
new admirers with his deft playing
Published Date: November 19th, 1948

Cowan Pinch-hits for Love Happy 9 Megger Lester Cowan, producer of
"Love Happy," will take over megging of additional scenes for comedy,
with Groucho and Harpo Marx
Published Date: February 14th, 1949

They are one and the same, the megging chore being the acting
veteran's first on a feature film. And in both departments he is
entitled to a nod of approval
Published Date: November 7th, 1955

On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 5:06 PM, Jesse Sheidlower <jester at panix.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM>
> Subject:      Re: 'meg", verb of unknown meaning, 1930
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 05:04:47PM -0400, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>> Variety, 1930 Nov. 12 (Wed.), p. 4, col. 5.  Microfilm.
>>
>> "Universal will not foreignize 'Half Gods.' George Melford, slated to
>> meg, has been switched to 'Boudoir Diplomat.' Arthur Gregor, who was
>> to direct the latter, is off the payroll temporarily. He will return
>> to make the Spanish "Resurrection."
>>
>> "meg', verb, not in OED Online; unknown meaning, unknown transitivity.
>
> = 'to direct', from _megaphone_.
>
> Jesse Sheidlower
>
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