[Ads-l] sporting man was Re: "shot" = 'hypodermic injection' (1889)

[Jonathan Lighter]

It's a fairly non-specific term. Cf. current AAVE "player."

JL

On Thu, Feb 18, 2021 at 5:25 PM MULLINS, WILLIAM D (Bill) CIV USARMY DEVCOM
AVMC (USA) <0000099bab68be9a-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:

> In what I've seen, a 19th-century "sporting man" invariably is a gambler.
> But I look at gambling literature far in excess of literature in which
> pimps would show up, so that may be biased.
>
>
> ----
>
> Without context, a  "sporting woman" predominantly meant prostitute. A
> "sporting man," without context, covered various options, often unsavory,
> from sportsman to gambler to pimp.
>
> Both were euphemisms, "sporting" implying "playing" in some sense.
>
> JL
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


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