[Ads-l] Main squeeze

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Sat Jul 15 20:24:18 UTC 2023


> On Jul 14, 2023, at 9:54 AM, Steven Losie <stevenlosie at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> ...
> OED3's Sense (b) of "main squeeze" is defined as "a sweetheart, a lover",
> which the OED claims began as a pun on "squeeze (n. 2b)", which is defined
> as "a close embrace, a hug". Both the OED and GDoS date this sense of "main
> squeeze" to 1926, but two earlier attestations support this sense's origins
> as a pun:
> 
> [begin quote]
> Billy—"Tilly seems to be very popular." Milly—"Oh, she lets all the fellows
> hug her." Billy—"Thinks she's the main squeeze, eh?"
> [end quote]
> Source: Allentown (PA) Morning Call, Dec 14, 1920, p.18, col.5
> Database: Proquest Historical Newspapers
> 
> [begin quote]
> "Now, there's Miss Klacker," said Augustus. "She is a brunet, and pretty.
> She has very small feet and a tiny mouth. But she is poor, and I prefer
> rich ones."
> 
> "But her father runs a large apple orchard and I heard that she was the
> main squeeze in the cider department," said Tom.
> [end quote]
> Source: The Pittsburg Press (Pittsburgh, PA), July 29, 1921, p.18, col.3
> Database: Proquest Historical Newspapers
> 
> The OED's first attestation of Sense (b) comes from Maines and Grant's 1926
> _Wise-crack Dictionary_, which is also the first instance where Sense (b)
> is used without referencing the pun. GDoS uses the same source:
> 
> 1926   G. H. Maines & B. Grant Wise-crack Dict. 11/2   Main squeeze, best
> girl.
> 
> Another unambiguous usage of "main squeeze" in this romantic sense is not
> found for another 41 years, but there are three more instances of the
> phrase in that period that I could find that do at least hint at it. But
> these could also be read as broad usages of Sense (a):
> 
> [begin quote]
> "Singing The Blues" was so well liked that it necessitated four encores to
> satisfy the craving of the dancers for more. Rose Marie Jones was absent,
> much to the sorrow of several young men who have been trying to second
> fiddle the main squeeze. S'matter, Rose Marie?
> [end quote]
> Source: The Light and Heebie Jeebies (Chicago, Illinois)
> Article Title: "The Dance - Metronomes"
> Oct 22, 1927, p.39, col.1
> America's Historical Newspapers (Readex / Newsbank)
> 
> The following instance is another written by Chicago-based syndicated
> columnist George Ade. The typo is in the original ("wine" should be "mine"):
> 
> [begin quote]
> Have you sized up my new strip o' calico? Little brighteyes is a peach, a
> cute rag, a lallypaloozer, a honey-cooler, a jimdandy, a scorchalorum. I
> hot-footed up to her hang-out, got the glad hand an' we proceeded to
> circulate. With her I'm the main squeeze, aces and eights,


Wondering about this last one.  I know from “main squeeze” but “aces and eights” I’ve always identified as the Dead Man’s Hand, so called because supposedly after Will Bill Hickok was fatally shot from behind in Deadwood, someone turned over his poker hand and it was…a pair of aces and a pair of eights.  Since then aces and eights has been (considered) bad luck.  Not sure how it’s functioning here. Maybe the strip o’ calico in question isn’t as fond of the speaker as he likes to think. At the very least, I hope he watched his back.

LH

> the stroke oar.
> Without tossin' any bouquets at myself, I'll put you hep to the fact that
> all the yaps, jays, greenies, rubes an' yokels are also-rans. She's nuts
> about me. When I wrap my fin around her an' take the old lunch-hook in
> wine, she can't see nobody else with a telescope. Yes sir, I've copped out
> a queen an' she's for me from sody to hock, from soup to nuts.
> [end quote]
> Source: The Hartford Courant, April 29, 1934, p. D2, col.3
> Article Title: Slang Of Today Invented Back In The Gay Nineties
> Author: George Ade
> Database: Proquest Historical Newspapers
> 
> The final instance from before the 1960s is more clearly Sense (a) in pun
> form, arriving at Sense (b), similar to the 1920 and 1921 instances. The
> phrase is found in the caption of a one-panel cartoon from 1943,
> accompanying a suggestive drawing of a young female stenographer sitting on
> her older, male boss's lap:
> 
> [begin quote]
> The office stenog thinks that she is the main squeeze in her outfit.
> [end quote]
> Source: Binghamton (NY) Press
> Comic strip title: Witty Kitty
> September 3, 1943, p.28, col.2
> Database: ProQuest Historical Newspapers
> 
> Still, the romantic Sense (b) of "main squeeze" is not found again with
> certainty until 1967, when it appeared in a widely-reprinted Boston Globe
> article as slang among the Black American community:
> 
> [begin quote]
> NEGRO TERM [.....] ENGLISH TRANSLATION
> 
> [..]
> 
> main squeeze [.....] best girl
> [end quote]
> Source: Boston Globe, June 11, 1967, p.E7, col.3
> Article Title: Americans Who Can't Speak Their Own Language
> Author: Lloyd Shearer
> Database: ProQuest Historical Newspapers
> 
> The next found instance is also the first instance to use "main squeeze" in
> the familiar possessive form:
> 
> [begin quote]
> [Albert] King has a husky voice that is suited to just talking out his
> material. In the ten minutes of "Blues Power," King tells you exactly where
> he is at. "I ain't seen my main squeeze for ten long weeks today. I got the
> blues. . .Can you dig it?" Then the guitar explodes into sound and you
> can't help but dig it.
> [end quote]
> Source: The Spectrum (Buffalo, New York), November 5, 1968, p.12, col.2
> Article Title: Record Review: Live Wire / Blues Power
> Database: NYS Historic Newspapers
> 
> Sense (b) appeared regularly thereafter, but neither the OED nor GDoS have
> citations for it until 1971 or later, aside from the isolated 1926 instance
> in the aforementioned _Wise-crack Dictionary_. Here are four more citations
> for Sense (b) before 1970:
> 
> [begin quote]
> Main man — A woman's boyfriend; a man's closest friend. Feminine form:
> _main squeeze_.
> [end quote]
> Source: New York Times Magazine, Dec 8, 1968, p.88, col.3
> Title: Soul Story
> Author: Adrian Dove
> Database: Proquest Historical Newspapers
> 
> Ellipses in the original:
> [begin quote]
> New Nomenclature to Note: "Main squeeze"...a guy's best girl.
> "Fly"...spectacular scene, THE thing. "Rap"...to talk, gossip.
> [end quote]
> Syndicated in various newspapers including:
> Source: Florence Times (Florence, Alabama), March 14, 1969, p.A2, col.4
> Article title: Youth Beat
> Author: Robert MacLeod
> Database: Google Books
> 
> Typo in the original ("in" should be "is"):
> [begin quote]
> Slanguage: The "main squeeze" in now a guy's steady chick.
> [end quote]
> Source: New York Daily News (as New York Sunday News), May 4, 1969, p.47,
> col.2
> Article Title: Strictly Youthsville
> Author: Adam Di Petto
> Database: ProQuest Historical Newspapers
> 
> Ellipses in the original:
> [begin quote]
> IT'S WHAT'S HAPPENING . . . JOIN THE SOUL UNDERGROUND . . . GET YOUR
> OFFICIAL SOUL POWER, SOUL BROTHER OR SOUL SISTER SWEATSHIRT . . .
> 
> [..]
> 
> GET ONE FOR YOURSELF, AND ONE FOR YOUR MAIN SQUEEZE . . .
> [end quote]
> Source: Soul (Los Angeles, CA), August 11, 1969, p.15, col.1
> Database: America's Historical Newspapers (Readex / Newsbank)
> 
> In July 1969, Quincy Jones released an instrumental single called "Main
> Squeeze". Janis Joplin was being backed by a backing band called "Main
> Squeeze" by the end of the year.
> 
> Note that the "important person" sense of the phrase was still in
> occasional use into the 1950s:
> 
> [begin quote]
> Informed Citizens in Action is the new name of what used to be Citizens in
> Action, Inc., a non-profit organization. J. Frank Burke, who dynamoed the
> original, seems to be the main squeeze in the newly named group.
> [end quote]
> Source: Daily News (Los Angeles, CA), Jan 23, 1952, p.17, col.2
> Article title: Taft Still GOP Fair-Haired Boy
> Author: Leslie E. Claypool
> Database: Newspapers.com
> 
> [begin quote]
> However, to keep in practice for the official banquet, the group would meet
> for a feed several times a year on the call of the Main Squeeze, who was
> Mr. Henne himself.
> [end quote]
> Source: The Journal-news (Spencerville, OH), Aug 19, 1954, p.1, col.2
> Article title: The Good Word
> Author: "ben"
> Database: Newspapers.com
> 
> Given all these citations, it would appear that "main squeeze" likely
> originated as a bit of gambling slang, possibly in the Chicago area in the
> late 1800s, using the OED's sense (n. 3a.) of "squeeze", which they trace
> back as far as 1639: "To press upon (a person, etc.) so as to exact or
> extort money; to fleece."
> 
> The OED also has definitions (n. 1e.) and (v. 1f.) of "squeeze" that relate
> to card-playing, both of which first appeared in the U.S. in the 1890s,
> around the same time that "main squeeze" Sense (a) first did. These are all
> used in a sense of pressuring someone for money.
> 
> The term was then transferred to the romantic sense of "main squeeze",
> originating as a pun using OED's "squeeze" sense (2b.), referring to an
> embrace or hug. The OED traces this hug sense of "squeeze" back to 1790.
> "Main squeeze" in the romantic sense (first as a pun) began appearing in
> the 1920s, though it wasn't until the 1960s that it began to appear in
> print regularly, which resulted in Sense (a) being mostly forgotten
> thereafter.
> 
> Antedatings and revisions are welcome.
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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


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