[Ads-l] "the skinny" redux

[Ben Zimmer]

On Wed, Jul 27, 2022 at 2:40 PM Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu> wrote:

> 1922 Won for the Fleet: A Story of Annapolis, p. 114
>
>  Old Man , you're hung on the skinny tree ! " “ You mean I'm posted unsat
> . in Physics ? ”
>

That seems to be playing with the "thin" and "physics and chemistry"
meanings, without the later "information" meaning. See also:

---
https://archive.org/details/luckybag1905unse/page/204/mode/2up
Lucky Bag, 1905, "Foolish Dictionary of Slang"
p. 205:
Date, n. [A fruit — something plucked from the skinny tree, often
associated with peaches.]
(2) An engagement for trysting or anything else.
p. 207:
Skinny, n. (1)  An impolite way of saying ''She's as fat as a lead pencil."
(2) Physics and Chemistry.
---



> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Ben
> Zimmer <bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2022 2:22 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: "the skinny" redux
>
> 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://urldefense.com/v3/__https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2019-August/155333.html__;!!OToaGQ!o0nfK0KP04CGLIiSSgkv5BRLotTidZL7mu1Ozgk-ywtpVmf9dXepRRLsEdEcGSdqg6t_VwXZYcfVhBSa$
>
> Stephen gave various examples from Lucky Bag, the Naval Academy's yearbook,
> but didn't include this one:
>
> ---
>
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://archive.org/details/luckybag1932unse/page/142/mode/1up?q=skinny__;!!OToaGQ!o0nfK0KP04CGLIiSSgkv5BRLotTidZL7mu1Ozgk-ywtpVmf9dXepRRLsEdEcGSdqg6t_VwXZYcZpqCn3$
> 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://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2011/01/skinny-2.html__;!!OToaGQ!o0nfK0KP04CGLIiSSgkv5BRLotTidZL7mu1Ozgk-ywtpVmf9dXepRRLsEdEcGSdqg6t_VwXZYWiyzaXu$
>
> 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.
>

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