[Ads-l] Heard: spoken by an Australian from New South Wales

[Peter Reitan]

Last year I wrote a piece about the history of toga parties<https://esnpc.blogspot.com/2016/12/fraternal-orders-fraternities-bed.html>.


https://esnpc.blogspot.com/2016/12/fraternal-orders-fraternities-bed.html


When they first became a fad in the 1870s, they were generally known as "sheet and pillow-slip parties."  The earliest accounts suggest they started in California.  The earliest example of a college fraternity "pillow slip" party I could find is from the 1880s at Ohio State.  President Franklin Roosevelt even had a toga-themed birthday party at the White House in 1934.


There are reports of "pillow slip parties," by that name, during every decade from 1870 through 1970, so "pillow slip" does not seem to have been strictly regional, although I haven't looked closely at "pillow slip," standing alone.


Peter Reitan


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From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
Sent: Thursday, November 23, 2017 10:01 AM
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Subject: Heard: spoken by an Australian from New South Wales

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Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
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Subject:      Heard: spoken by an Australian from New South Wales
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"pillowslip" < _pillowcase_

Mildly surprising. "Pillowslip" was the ordinary term that I used as a
child, in East Texas. I have no idea whether this form is used anywhere
else in the U.S., bedclothes not being a particularly common topic of
conversation outside of the family. IAC, it seems to me that _pillowcase_
is the preferred term, in Yankspeak.

--
-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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