[Ads-l] Butch Dykeman and Miss Gay (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Baker, John]

The claim that Hammett meant "catamite" is based primarily on a 1965 article by Erle Stanley Gardner, the relevant portion of which is quoted at https://www.miskatonic.org/gooseberry.html.  Actually, Gardner does not say "catamite," but simply says that "gunsel" is "a very naughty word with no relation whatever to a bodyguard, a gunman, or a torpedo."  The other meanings, however, do not seem to be all that naughty.

Admittedly, this was more than 35 years after Hammett wrote.  Also, although Gardner gives the impression of having inside information, I don't know how reliable he actually is.


John Baker



-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Jonathan Lighter
Sent: Tuesday, June 09, 2015 3:44 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Butch Dykeman and Miss Gay (UNCLASSIFIED)

It is not certain that Hammett meant "catamite" at all.

HDAS:

The earliest ex. (1910) clearly means "boy or raw youth."

"Catamite" appears in 1918.

"A stupid or contemptible fellow," 1932.

"Gunman," 1943.

A WW2 navy officer  told me in a bar (really) in the early '70s that he'd
frequently used it to mean a useless sailor because - wait for it - "a gun
*has* no sail." He spelled it "guns'l."

JL

On Tue, Jun 9, 2015 at 3:15 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Butch Dykeman and Miss Gay (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> > On Jun 9, 2015, at 2:26 PM, Baker, John <JBAKER at STRADLEY.COM> wrote:
> >=20
> > Yes, what the uncredited author of the Toni Gay/Butch Dykeman stories =
> did was similar to what Dashiell Hammett did with "gunsel" in The =
> Maltese Falcon (1929), when he used it to mean "catamite" but left his =
> editor with the impression that it was some form of "gunman."  The usage =
> was repeated in the 1941 movie, undetected by Hays Code censors.
>
> Yup, and no doubt Hammett enjoyed goosing the censors.
>
> LH
> >=20
> > "Gay," "Butch," and "Dykeman" were more defensible than "gunsel," in =
> that "Gay" and "Dykeman" are actual surnames and "Butch" was then a =
> fairly common male nickname.  However, "gay," "butch," and "dyke" have =
> since gone mainstream, so their use together is striking to the average =
> reader.  "Gunsel," catamite, is still unknown to the average person.
> >=20
> >=20
> > John Baker


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