antedating (?) "ass bandit"

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Sun May 25 04:20:39 UTC 2014


On May 25, 2014, at 12:05 AM, Arnold Zwicky wrote:

> On May 24, 2014, at 7:13 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
>>
>> On Sat, May 24, 2014 at 8:17 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> Note: HDAS was the  first work of historical lexicography to have cited
>>> aircraft "nose art" from historical photographs.
>>>
>>
>> Go 'head, Jon!
>>
>> But how do we know what "ass bandit" meant, During The War? I had to look
>> it up in HDAS to see what it meant in 1954, the year that I graduated from
>> high school, supposedly booted to the hip and hip to the haps.
>
> could people be more direct in what they're saying? (to start with, my copy of HDAS is currently unavailable to me,so i'm guessing at what it says.)
>
> my recollection was that back in the early 50s, an ass bandit was a guy who got a lot of ass --- roughly, and less crudely, a womanizer.  is that close to HDAS?

Pretty close:

1.  'an eager seducer of young women --usu. considered vulgar'
[first cite from Ellson, _Owen Harding_, 1954]

>
> (predictably, i guess, there's now a man-on-man usage for the expression.  not relevant here.)
>
2.  'an aggressive homosexual anal sodomist --usu. considered vulgar'
[Partridge 1961 for "arse bandit"]

LH

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