[Ads-l] Dialect clash: _shlong_

[Ben Zimmer]

On Wed, Dec 21, 2016 at 5:50 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> GBooks has the following snippet from 1967:
>
> A carnival of modern humor - Page 152
> https://books.google.com/books?id=jWseAAAAMAAJ
> Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, ‎Scott Meredith - 1967 - ‎Snippet view
> "But listen, old buddy. I got to beg off. I'm hung up."
> "Well, OK. I know how busy you educational-TV writers are. How's the show
> coming?"
> "Pretty messy. We're doing mostly _*schlong*_ stuff now and very little
> cerebral."
> "What the hell is _*schlong*_?"
>
> Unfortunately, the answer to this question is unavailable. And, since our
> word is here used adjectivally, the answer is most likely irrelevant, in
> any case. But...
>
> Youneverknow.
>

I can't see the answer to the question either, but from looking at other
snippets I believe this is a passage from "The Girl with the Bear Rug Eyes"
by Rex Lardner, a short story originally published in the April 1960 issue
of Playboy. And given the TV context, the use of "schlong" here is probably
related to a meaning that Garson uncovered last year:

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2015-December/140199.html
1954 August 20, St. Petersburg Times, Radio and Television:
Television's 'Schlongs', Their Antics Described by John Crosby, Quote
Page 34, Column 1, St. Petersburg, Florida. (Google News
Archive)
You know what a schlong is? If you have followed the careers of Ralph
Edwards or "Beat the Clock" or any other shows of that ilk, you have
seen a lot of schlongs. A schlong, to end this suspense, is a rather
messy stunt. A contestant gets a pie in the face. The audience howls.
That is a schlong.


> However, cf. the following:
>
> New American Review - Issue 1 - Page 139
> https://books.google.com/books?id=YzhZAAAAYAAJ
> Ted Solotaroff - 1967 - ‎Snippet view
> Mocked and mangled as his masculinity was, in a world of goyim with golden
> hair and silver tongues, between his legs, God bless my father! he was
> constructed like a man of consequence, two big, healthy balls such as a
> king would be proud of, and a _*shlong*_ [italics original] of magisterial
> length and girth.
>

As Larry noted upthread, this is from _Portnoy's Complaint_. Roth published
an early excerpt of the novel in the Sept. 1967 issue of New American
Review under the title "The Jewish Blues." Excerpts had already appeared in
other magazines (Esquire, Apr. 1967, "A Jewish Patient Begins His
Analysis," and Partisan Review, Aug. 1967, "Whacking Off"), but the NAR
excerpt may have been the first time Roth introduced "s(c)hlong" to the
world. So that means he still has the earliest citation date (antedating
CUSS 1968).

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2007/10/25/the-birth-of-portnoy/

--Ben

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