[Ads-l] _Hawaiian disease_

[Wilson Gray]

> I prefer to believe it was the former.

I agree. The joke wasn't particularly funny or otherwise of sufficient
interest for it to become a thing.

On Mon, Mar 12, 2018 at 8:15 PM, Peter Reitan <pjreitan at hotmail.com> wrote:

> There's a Hawaiian-themed restaurant in Mammoth Lakes California called
> Lakanuki Cafe, and they make no obvious effort to play-up the joke of their
> name.
>
> It was probably the third time I ate there that I figured it out.
>
> Either they were very subtle or I was very dim.  I prefer to believe it
> was the former.
>
> (Shut up!)
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of
> Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Sent: Monday, March 12, 2018 3:08 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: _Hawaiian disease_
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: _Hawaiian disease_
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> -------------------
>
> Have you checked "lakanuki" in HDAS?
>
> JL
>
> On Mon, Mar 12, 2018 at 6:01 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > In Green's, the primary [=3D straight] definition is "the lack of female
> > company." In '50's St. Louis, it was part of the set-up to the following
> > pun:
> >
> > a. Do you know what the "Hawaiian disease" is?
> > b. No. What?
> > a. Lack o' nookie.
> >
> > At one time, the Hawaiian lovesong, K=C4=81ua I Ka Huahua=CA=BBi,
> mistran=
> slated into
> > English as "Hawaiian War Chant," was sufficiently popular that everybody
> > knew enough about what Hawaiian sounded like to understand the point of
> t=
> he
> > punning answer to the question.
> >
> > Googling reveals an alternative answer: "Lack o' moolah." HDAS dates
> > _moolah_ "money" from at least 1939. So, who knows which version is
> older=
> ?
> >
> > Oddly, the home of St. Louis's Shriners is the Moolah Temple of the
> Mysti=
> c
> > Shrine. Whether this name has anything to do with the slang term I have
> n=
> o
> > idea, though I've been wondering about it since '40's..
> >
> > Another "oddly" is that the "lack o'" version seems not to show up in
> pri=
> nt
> > till 2010 or so and neither HDAS nor GDS has it, seemingly.
> >
> >
> > --
> > -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
> >
>
>
>
> --=20
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
-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