[Ads-l] "the skinny" redux

[Ben Zimmer]

Here's another relevant Lucky Bag cite, from 1936:

---
https://archive.org/details/luckybag1936unse/page/62/mode/2up?q=skinny
The Lucky Bag, 1936, pp. 62-3
First class cruise, we became steam profs and expounded to the youngsters
the vagaries of evaporators and the skinny of turbines.
---

That really does suggest that the "hard sciences" sense of "skinny" at
Annapolis got transferred to other kinds of "hard facts."

It's notable that the original formulation (also seen in _The Rolling
World_) was "the skinny *of* (something)," which would later shift to "the
skinny *on* (something)."

--bgz

On Wed, Jul 27, 2022 at 2:22 PM Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:

> Back in 2019, Stephen Goranson started a thread on "the skinny" =
> "information, news, gossip," noting that "skinny" was US Naval Academy
> slang for the physics and chemistry department.
>
> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2019-August/155333.html
>
> Stephen gave various examples from Lucky Bag, the Naval Academy's
> yearbook, but didn't include this one:
>
> ---
> https://archive.org/details/luckybag1932unse/page/142/mode/1up?q=skinny
> Lucky Bag, 1932, p. 142
> [Student bio of Harold Edward Baker]
> If you don't get the skinny of things, Eddie can usually set you right.
> ---
>
> This cite is mentioned in a Grammarphobia post by Patricia T. O'Conner and
> Stewart Kellerman. The entry was originally posted on Grammarphobia in Jan.
> 2011 but was updated in June 2021.
>
> https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2011/01/skinny-2.html
>
> As Pat and Stewart suggest, this appears to be the earliest known cite for
> "the skinny" in the informational sense, antedating the 1938 example given
> by JL later in the 2019 thread (see below). The 1938 cite has also been
> added to the OED's online entry.
>
> --bgz
>
> On Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 5:54 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> The earliest discovered exx. of "the skinny," acc. to HDAS, appear in the
>> adventure memoir, _The Rolling World_ (Boston: Houghton, 1938), by Richard
>> [Matthews] Hallet.  Hallet (1887-1967), from Boothbay Harbor, Maine, had
>> two degrees from Harvard when in 1912 he decided to ditch his law career
>> and go to sea.  His book mainly covers the period of 1912 to about 1932
>> and
>> recounts as well time he spent in Australia and Arizona.
>>
>> Hallet uses "the skinny" at least twice, in a book published decades
>> before
>> the term went mainstream. It seems significant, however, that the word is
>> neither defined nor placed within quotes:
>>
>> P. 287:  "But the elfin corners of Lehua's mouth suggested her gift of
>> improvisation. Had she really given me the skinny of an actual legend from
>> the archives of her race, or was she wafting me the native poetry of her
>> soul?
>>
>> P. 332:  "We lit our pipes.  I gave him the skinny of a yarn I had written
>> of this western country. It was called 'The Snap of the Cap,' and had to
>> do
>> with a man who had fallen in love with a girl out here somewhere in these
>> mountains."
>>
>> What may also be significant is that both exx. are "assigned" to the
>> period
>> after 1928, when Hallet accompanied Navy Secretary Curtis Wilbur to Pearl
>> Harbor in the battleship _California_. (He met "Lehua" on Oahu.) It is
>> thus
>> possible that Hallet picked up a word that already had notable currency in
>> the Navy, or at least in _California_.  That could explain the absence of
>> definition or quotation marks.
>>
>> But so could a lot of things.
>>
>> The ex. on p. 287 is easily interpreted as "the real truth," as is now
>> common, but the second ex. is not; there "the skinny" seems to mean, more
>> precisely, the (bare?) basic facts.  Get it? "Skin-ny."   (Don't blame me;
>> I didn't make the usage up.)
>>
>> Of course, the pre-existing naval currency of "Skinny"  at Annapolis as
>> "physics and chemistry" ("hard sciences" as Stephen observes) wouldn't
>> have
>> hurt the rise of the new meaning.
>>
>> JL
>>
>> On Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 3:54 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > The earliest discovered exx. of "the skinny," acc. to HDAS, appear in
>> the
>> > memoir, _The Rolling World_ (Boston:
>> >
>> > On Fri, Aug 30, 2019 at 5:50 PM ADSGarson O'Toole <
>> > adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >>  Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>> >> > Garson,  that seems to be the glossary appearing in Lee's "Fag-Ends."
>> >> >
>> >> > The book's pub date is 1878, but the copyright is 1877.
>> >> >
>> >> > Significantly, even if P. J. Dashiell was still in school in 1877,
>> Lee
>> >> > alludes to a professor nicknamed "Skinny" on p. 41.
>> >>
>> >> Here are some links into HathiTrust plus a Google Books link
>> >>
>> >> Fag-Ends From the Naval Academy
>> >> https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015016768346
>> >>
>> >> The Last Section - Page 41
>> >> https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015016768346?urlappend=%3Bseq=95
>> >>
>> >> A Dictionary (Second page of dictionary which lists skinny) - Page 99
>> >> https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015016768346?urlappend=%3Bseq=215
>> >>
>> >> Fag-Ends From the Naval Academy
>> >> https://books.google.com/books?id=NtExAQAAMAAJ&
>> >>
>>
>

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