[Ads-l] _to pimp_ "josh, kid, tease," etc.

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> On Jun 17, 2017, at 12:00 AM, ADS-L automatic digest system <LISTSERV at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> wrote:
> 
> Date:    Fri, 16 Jun 2017 17:00:06 -0400
> From:    Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM <mailto:hwgray at gmail.com>>
> Subject: Heard on Forensic Files: _to pimp_ "josh, kid, tease," etc.
> 
> Female Fort Collins, Colorado, police detective describing her reaction to
> a phone-call from the police fingerprint-examiner:
> 
> "She said, 'I've found him! I've found a match!' I said, 'No! You're
> _pimping_ me! You're _pimping_ me.' She said, 'I'm *not* _pimping_ you!
> We've *got* him!'"
> 
> The examiner had eyeballed - this was back in the day - tens of thousands
> of fingerprints over the course of six years, before finding the match.


This was an extremely common usage in Des Moines, Iowa, where I grew up in the 50s and 60s. It was especially common in high school (from which I graduated in 1967).

"You're _pimping_ me!" meant "You're kidding me" or "You're shitting me." I was in college before I learned that to pimp also meant to run a prostitute.

Pat O'Conner
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org