[Ads-l] _broker than the Ten Commandments_

[Jonathan Lighter]

I know it too, Wilson.

Maybe I picked it from Louis Armstrong's _Satchmo_ (1954).

JL

On Fri, Apr 15, 2016 at 7:07 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> Not in HDAS?
>
> Ladies' Home Journal - Volume 66 - Page 46
> https://books.google.com/books?id=wNQcAQAAMAAJ
> 1949 - ‎Snippet view - ‎More editions
> A boy without money is "_broker than the Ten Commandments_"; a "lovely" is
> homely; "saggy" is tired, but "soggy" is dull. "You're all right in your
> place, but they haven't dug it yet" or "You're a neat guy, but there's just
> no demand for them" is a brush-off. A boy trying to get a date with an
> extra-popular girl may find it's "as easy as stacking greased BB's with
> boxing gloves on!" Answering the phone, teeners say, "Shoot, it's your
> nickel"; "State Prison, Inmate 13"; "This is heaven, which angel do you
> want?"; or "I don't care if you did call, I don't want to talk to you" -
> with a quick bang of the receiver. Their slang is so complicated that even
> teeners themselves, changing high schools, sometimes need an interpreter. A
> "lotus" is a boy; a "lotus blossom" is a girl. If a girl "courts to get her
> votes," she necks to be popular. And if she "courts up a a storm," she
> necks heavily....Everybody's doing it. Dallas boys like to sport boogie
> haircuts (short on top and long on the sides), bur cuts (clipped to within
> an inch of the scalp) and even Apache cuts (which, unlike boogie cuts,
> leave a ridge of long hair on top of the head).
>
> Given that I learned this phrase no earlier than 1957 and it's in a square,
> white-lady's mag two years later, either it's a lot older than 1947 or it
> was far more popular than I thought.
>
> Youneverknow.
> --
> -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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



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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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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org