[Ads-l] _suffer from the shorts_

[Wilson Gray]

Pros May Suffer From The Shorts . - Google News
The [St. Petersburg, Florida] Evening Independent - Mar 12, 1962 - Page 4
Pros May Suffer From The 'Shorts' [headline]
https://goo.gl/poC8SS

The article is about the wind on a golf course. I leave interpretation of
the headline as an exercise for the reader.

The Killer Instinct & Other Stories from the Great Depression
https://books.google.com/books?id=5EggAQAAIAAJ
Lew Amster - 1987 - ‎Snippet view
His manager found it impossible to get Joey another match. Soon, Joey began
to _suffer from the shorts_, a contraction of the wherewithal necessary for
the pursuit of life, liberty and so forth.

In the above meaning, the phrase was in common use, IME, amongst the
colored in StL from the '40's. Given the title of the book, it wouldn't
surprise me, if there were earlier, actual documentation in HDAS.
-- 
-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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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org