salugi

[Laurence Horn]

On May 2, 2014, at 6:23 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> The Files contain a printed example of "salugi" from a 1956 bestseller
> about Brooklyn. It refers to the 1940s.
>
> 1956 Gerald Green _The Last Angry Man_  207 [rpt. N.Y.: Pocket Books,
> 1972]: They had seized the tan derby of one of their number...[and] were
> tossing it around in a wild game of _salugi_.
>
> Green was born in 1922.
>
>

Yeah, you can tell.  Our wild saluggis didn't involve tan derbies, more like baseball caps and gloves.

L
>
>
> On Fri, May 2, 2014 at 5:04 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: salugi
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Mr. Samuel Solomon of Forest Hills wrote to Hy Gardner's column in the
>> Philadelphia Inquirer (Dec. 27, 1961), p. 13 to reminisce about "the good
>> old days":
>>
>> "When New York City policemen wore a high, round grey helmet...When streets
>> had lampposts lit by a man with a long stick...When we played the
>> frustrating game of salugi, or however you spelled it. A toughie from
>> another neighborhood would steal your ball, then taunt you by throwing it
>> to everyone but you."
>>
>> (A tip o' the Saluggi hat to  http://www.fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html  !)
>>
>> My grandparents used to reminisce about the same things - except for the
>> saluggi part, though my recollection is that my grandfather (b. 1884) was
>> thoroughly familiar with the concept if not the word.
>>
>> The word "toughie" alone and the past tense of "spell" are almost enough to
>> persuade me that Sam was relating a genuine memory of the ancient world.
>>
>> I believe that the virtual absence of this word in print is due to the
>> difficulty of spelling it convincingly.
>>
>> A more chilling possibility is that in any era, the spoken vocabulary has
>> little to do with its printed cousin.  So give up on historical
>> dictionaries.
>>
>> (The Old Fulton search function turned up a circa 1905 "Anti-Salooji
>> League," but it was only a bad scan.)
>>
>> JL
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, May 2, 2014 at 3:47 PM, David Barnhart <dbarnhart at highlands.com
>>> wrote:
>>
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> -----------------------
>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       David Barnhart <dbarnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM>
>>> Subject:      salugi
>>>
>>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> With his pugnacious, street-tough manner, Buchanan looks as if he spent
>> his
>>> youth standing outside yeshivas and tormenting the Hebrew students by
>>> playing salugi with their yarmulkes. Lars-Erik Nelson, "Dole's Feeling A
>>> Pat
>>> On Back Republicans Fear A Loose Bucannon," Daily News [New York]
>> (Nexis),
>>> Feb. 13, 1996, p 2
>>>
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>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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