[Ads-l] Kavanaugh yearbook

[Ben Zimmer]

On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 4:11 PM Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:

> On another beer-drinking-related note, one of Kavanaugh's calendar entries
> from the summer of '82 (July 1) says: "Go to Timmy’s for Skis w/ Judge,
> Tom, PJ, Bernie, Squi."
>
>
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/09/26/kavanaughs-calendar-annotated/#annotations:15457749
>
> Many have suggested "skis" is short for "brewskis," which seems plausible.
> I don't see "ski" defined that way in slang dictionaries, but there's an
> Urban Dictionary entry from 2005 with that definition. There's also a line
> in the song "Dumas Walker" by The Kentucky Headhunters, from their 1989
> album "Pickin' on Nashville": "We'll get a slawburger, fries and a bottle
> of ski."
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumas_Walker
> http://kentuckyheadhunters.net/Lyrics/Dumas.htm
>

...unless the song is referring to Ski the soft drink?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ski_(soda)

Band member Doug Phelps says it's about "a place where you could buy beer,
snacks, fireworks on the 4th of July," which might support the "brewski"
interpretation.

https://web.archive.org/web/20090522222722/http://www.libertynjustice.net/gettoknow_doug.php


(Then again, "bottle of brewski" sounds a bit odd.)

--bgz

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